


bexm

by starsidespica



Series: metempsychosis [4]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ar nosurge Fusion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, No one gets hurt, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, Physical Abuse, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, but just to be safe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 130,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28008630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsidespica/pseuds/starsidespica
Summary: Akira returns.The life he prepared for is gone; in its place is a Japan he doesn't remember and a love he can't find. But Yuuki is out there somewhere, waiting for him, and Akira intends to keep his promises. No matter how long it takes or how many obstacles stand in his way, they will find each other again.Akira is sure of it.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro & Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Amamiya Ren/Mishima Yuuki, Kurusu Akira/Mishima Yuuki, Mishima Yuuki/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: metempsychosis [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1441789
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. The Return

**Author's Note:**

> bexm; Hymmnos: (the) time (has come)

Goro Akechi opened his eyes, anticipating stars and the vastness of space or the gray walls of that long-forgotten room he’d been summoned in, and found green grass and a blue-gray river and a wide blue sky scudded with clouds. His backpack rested beside him amid a loose scattering of picked flowers; he had, for one reason or another, made a daisy chain for Feather Red that hung around its neck, his fingers too small and unskilled to make anything smaller.

That’s right, he’d—he’d stopped by the river after school that day. His classmates had ignored and taunted him in turn again, and he’d thought his mom would take his disappointing test score a little better with something pretty to go with it. He’d reached for his doll and backpack and then the world had faded out like static on a TV screen. Unlike his soul, his things hadn’t made the journey.

But—he was back now. Or he thought he was; he pinched at his arms and thighs, slapped his hands to his cheeks, picked up Feather Red—and it hurt, and the doll was soft in his hands, and the daisy chain tickled where the stems were beginning to come loose.

But—

But—

“Mama,” he said, his voice a croak after going unused all day. Goro hefted his backpack and Feather Red and took off down the street, the vaguest of memories guiding his feet home.

Mama would know if he was real or not. Mama would know if he came back— _actually_ came back—and then he could call Akira, to see if he came back, too. Goro would have to find a way to thank him somehow. Mama could help; Mama was smart like that.

He grinned as he tore past the shopping district, the smells of not-so-fresh fish and frying oils hitting his nose. His mouth watered; how long had it been since he’d smelled and tasted food? How long had it been since he’d been able to run with all his might and feel his heart pumping and his muscles screaming?

How long had it been since he was Goro Akechi?

Too long. Far too long.

“Mama!” he shouted, skidding to a stop in front of his apartment door, digging through his pockets for his key. Feather Red’s daisy chain was long gone, flowers strewn in his wake and a few clinging stubbornly to his hand.

Mama would like them. Mama would love them.

Mama… wasn’t home. He checked everywhere in the apartment, going so far as to check under the beds folded up in the corner in case she was hiding. She was nowhere.

Maybe—maybe she was out picking up groceries for dinner. Something special, since the note she left on the fridge was still there: **interview at Mak** **i** **shima’s**. Maybe that was the reason he’d been taking his time going home. Goro could remember enough, but he couldn’t remember what her schedule had been, and he couldn’t remember if she’d told him or not.

But that was okay, he decided. Akira had taught him plenty of things while they waited for the Soreil to drift to the center of the universe, and while Goro’s hands were small, he could still cook. He could make something for him and Mama to eat while he waited for her to come home. She’d like that, since he remembered a lot of interviews not going well, and how she hated to do much after. He could make curry, and she would praise him, and then—

And then—

And then…

He didn’t know.

(On the other side of town, Emiko Akechi sighed, all but dragging her feet. She was used to the heels from working at the club, but she’d budgeted all wrong, depending on Mr. Makishima to want someone like her as a receptionist. She could have taken the bus to the shopping district then; she could have had money to spare for bus fare.

But he didn’t, so she didn’t, and so she walked home in her good, proper working-woman heels. This was going to be another month or two at the club looking for another job prospect that would ultimately go to some younger woman who didn’t have baggage in the form of a child weighing her down. Goro was going to be eight next month; he could fend for himself if she needed to stay late at a good, respectable job. He was a good boy; he always listened to her.

She dug the card out of her pocket. Goro’s wobbly penmanship greeted her— **Do your best, Mom!** —with a terrible drawing of them both, smiling.

Because she never gave him a reason not to smile, she knew. Because he wanted her to get the job as much as she did—no more club work meant no more long trips to the bathhouse at night, and those got to be expensive, after a while. Because no more club work meant not having to bring home the occasional client, trying to make him happy enough to leave a tip, and finding pieces of her clothes missing in the morning. Because Goro wanted her to be happy… and Emiko wasn’t happy.

She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, aware that her club smile had dropped at some point after Makishima’s door had closed behind her. She never dropped it until she was out of sight of anyone who might be watching, no matter what happened—not even the time one of her clients got a little too drunk and a little too violent and scratched her arm so deeply the scars were still there, years later.

Today was supposed to be different. She’d been assured by Makishima’s wife that she was guaranteed to get the job if she just applied for it. She had the credentials, aside from her club work. She didn’t care about the hours. Goro was getting old enough to fend for himself; he wouldn’t need her so much.

He wouldn’t need her, but the look in Makishima’s eyes as he told her she had more important obligations to tend to said the opposite: that her place was to watch over her son, and that was all. How could she dare to have ambitions and dreams of her own when Goro was around, constantly needing her? How could she dare to leave a child alone?

The card blurred. The only ones who believed they could make it through whatever changes a new job would bring them were her and Goro—everyone else only ever saw the shackle he was, instead of the bright boy he was growing up to be. She’d sat him down and talked to him about it, and he’d been overjoyed at being treated like her equal. He’d said he’d do any chore she wanted, if it helped her at the end of the day.

He was going to be so disappointed. She already was: in herself; in Makishima and his wife and all the people just like them; in Masayoshi Shido, who she thought had loved her. He loved his job more. He loved his prospects more. If he’d stuck around maybe he’d never get to be prime minister, but a father to a happy family. Maybe then Makishima would have hired her. Maybe then Goro would have friends to play with. Maybe then she wouldn’t have to bring clients home and wake to her neighbor’s whispers as she took the trash out.

He was going to be so disappointed. Emiko hadn’t promised him anything, but he probably had a list for when they saved up enough for a treat or two—dinner at a diner, ice cream, new shoes, a toy—and he’d told her to do her best, grinning and hugging her as if he knew she would succeed. In his eyes, the job was already hers.

… He was going to be so disappointed. She was ruining his card with tears gone gray with mascara; she was gripping it so tight her nails poked holes in it.

In another life, the rip sounded almost like Goro crying out for her. In another life. she wiped her tears and promised herself that she would splurge anyway and pick up a few extra shifts at the club to make Goro his favorite dinner. In another life, she continued down the sidewalk, head held high to spite what everyone liked to say about her. In another life, she would be startled by the semi that came barreling down the road, the roar and rush of its tailwind forcing her to another stop.

But that was in another; in this one she stared down at the card, now torn almost in two, and could practically feel Goro’s disappointment. Goro would leave her because she didn’t get the job, because she tore his gift, because he secretly hated her for not giving him what he wanted. Goro would leave and he would think back on her with disdain. He would think her worthless, useless, good for nothing except a quick lay to toss aside in the morning.

He would be right, and he would be right to leave her, and the thought of her little boy—He was almost eight! He could fend for himself!—leaving her left a hole in her heart, an aching void in her chest. Emiko tried to take in air and failed; she tried to breathe, one breath at a time, and failed.

There was no air. Or maybe she had no lungs to breathe with; she beat at her chest, on her knees now, her stockings torn and skin bloodied where it met concrete.

A doctor. She had to get to a doctor; she couldn’t feel her hands, or her feet, or the tiny pebbles kicked up the sidewalk digging into her knees. Like this—she couldn’t call anyone like this, not when her voice wasn’t working, not when every lungful of air became nothing inside her—nothing just like she was—nothing exactly the way men like Masayoshi Shido and Makishima believed her to be.

A car, though; a car would stop for her. If it even saw her; if she wasn’t as transparent on the outside as she was on the inside; if she was even someone to stop for. Emiko staggered to her feet, wobbled out to the edge of the sidewalk—

—and stepped into the path of semi.)

When Mama didn’t show up for dinner, Goro’s gut squirmed. Something was wrong, and he knew it, but he couldn’t remember if she’d promised to be home for dinner or if she said she would go straight to the club. He couldn’t remember her days off. He couldn’t even remember if the club would feed her dinner or not, or if she had to pay for it like a customer, which was stupid. She worked there; she should get free food every once in a while.

When he called, the man who picked up gruffly said, “This place ain’t for kids,” and hung up.

So Goro called again and barely got the question of whether Mama was there out of his mouth before he was interrupted and hung up on, again. He stared at the phone, contemplating calling until the man on the other end listened to him.

If he ever would.

He put the phone back in its cradle. Mama’s share of dinner went into a container—it got all mixed up in the process, but she’d be happy to learn he was thinking about her, happy to see him and know that he cared, even if no one else in the world did. He checked his pockets for everything he would need—his school ID, the couple of flowers that had survived his dash home, the house key—and locked up and set off down the road.

Goro wasn’t particularly scared of the district Mama worked in, but she’d made him promise not to visit her at work except in emergencies. He should have been afraid of the cloying smell of cigarette and cigar smoke and incense; he should have been afraid of the curtain of night gradually falling over him with every step; he should have been afraid of the strangers who glared at him, sneering that he was too young to be here.

Goro, with Mama’s dinner in one and the club’s business card in another, ignored them. They went on their way, bored with him and entranced by the nightlife—and Goro figured that, at least, wouldn’t ever change. If he ignored his bullies and everyone who didn’t like him, they’d go away.

Besides, he was here for Mama, not for them.

He made his way through the district, down one street then another, asking directions from the nicer ladies that lined the road in dresses Mama came home wearing sometimes; they cooed over him, patting his hair and telling him he was sweet for thinking of bringing Mama dinner until he stank of perfume and his cheeks felt as if they’d had holes pinched into them. He swore he could feel them bleeding as he turned the last corner—

—and spotted the officers standing around outside one of the clubs. Its signs were still on, and Goro double- and triple-checked the name on the card to the one on the sign.

One of the officers smoking spotted him, pointed him out to his partner. The man sighed, shook his head, started coming over with a too-friendly smile on his face—

(“Oh, I’m sure it won’t be that scary,” said the lady in the lab coat, her grin too wide, her eyebrow twitching.

Goro, after spending the last week being told there was no way home, not for him, not anymore—let the rest of her reassurances wash over him like a cold douse of water. There was no way home, there was no way to see Mama ever again, and every time he reached out to the nurses or the lady in the lab coat they jerked themselves away from him, stretching grins across their faces.

Maybe his bullies were right. He _was_ unwanted.)

—and knelt down to talk to him at eye-level. His tone was even gentle as he asked, “Now what’s a kid like you doing in a place like this, hm?”

“Mama didn’t come home for dinner,” Goro told him, and brandished the container like a shield, “so I’m bringing her some.”

“Yeah? That’s sweet of you. Wish my kids were the same way,” the officer said. His partner snuffed out his cigarette and headed inside, giving Goro another glance. “What’s your Mama’s name? Do you know it?”

“Akechi,” he said. He knew that much. But Mama was always Mama, except to the clients she brought home. They could be clients, waiting for her. He’d never seen her bring two of them home at once, but that had to happen, didn’t it?

“Akechi,” the officer echoed, still with that too-wide smile, like he was faking being happy, as if Goro couldn’t tell. “So your name’s Akechi, too?”

They knew Mama somehow. Goro wasn’t surprised—most of the town seemed to know each other, and if they didn’t at first they did after a month or two—but to know him, too? Had Mama talked about him? Didn’t that make the men mad?

Was that it? Were they mad at him?

“I want to see Mama,” he told the officer, eyeing the commotion behind the club’s windows. If there was one thing Akira had drilled into him it had been that sometimes talking worked things out, and he wasn’t strong enough here to fight whoever got in his way. “I’ll see her, and give her her dinner, and then I’ll go home.”

The officer’s face softened. Goro knew that look; the lady in the lab coat had worn it before telling him he would never go home again. The nurses had worn it before they held him down and jabbed needles in his arms. “Well, Akechi,” the officer started to say, but was interrupted by a shriek from the door.

“Goro! What are you doing here?!”

For a second, he thought it was Mama, and that the officers were here for a different reason—but then he saw the lady, her black hair up in a half-bun, her make-up half-done, the wrinkles on her face deeper than Mama’s. She looked almost like the lady in the lab coat, but that was dumb—stupid—that lady was ten-thousand years dead, and the one who pushed the officer out of the way to wrap Goro up in a hug was alive.

“Oh, Goro,” she was saying. The bad feeling he’d had ever since the clock ticked past dinnertime got stronger. His stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a rock—heavy and dragging him down into the earth. It was hard to breathe around it; it seemed to push up into his throat, trapping the air there. “Goro, Goro, listen. You’ll be alright. Emiko—your Mama—loved you. I know she did.”

“Mama doesn’t love me anymore?”

“Oh, no, no, that’s not it,” she said, and sniffled.

“Ma’am,” said the officer, “maybe if you’d let me—”

“Shut it,” was her response. “Emiko worked here. We talk—talked all the time on our breaks. She keeps—a photo of Goro in her locker. She showed him off all the time. So let me tell him. Let someone who considers—considered her a friend tell him.”

She kept flipping back and forth between present and past tense. She wouldn’t do that unless— “Did they take her?” he blurted out, looking at the officer, at his partner looking on from the club door, at the man who looked like the manager or the bouncer, all of them looking back at him with that same sad smile on their faces. _You can’t go home_ , that lady in the lab coat had said. _Your Mama isn’t here._

“Did they take her?” he asked again, more insistent. “Did they? I already helped them, they don’t need any more—they promised, they promised they wouldn’t! They said they’d be better!”

That got the officers’ attention. They traded looks—confused but concerned—and the more stern one by the door nodded with barely a tilt to his head.

The woman holding him said, through hiccups, “Goro, honey. Your Mama’s—she got in an accident on the way back from Makishima’s. She died on the way to the hospital. They tried to help her, but they couldn’t. I’m so sorry.”

“She—” _Died_ , he heard, over and over again. _Died. Died._

Died, when she was supposed to be alive to miss him.

She _died_ , when she was supposed to be _here_ —supposed to come home and laugh when he hugged her too hard, not understanding that he’d been gone ten-thousand years, not understanding that the only people who had dared to hold his hand or hug him in the last decade were Akira and Prim and Casty and that he couldn’t feel any of it. She was supposed to give in to his request to make him pancakes. She was supposed to talk his ear off about how much she wished she could give him a better life. She was supposed to be happy with the meager handful of flowers in his pocket.

He couldn’t remember her face anymore, or the sound of her voice, but she was supposed to be _here_.

Hot tears welled up; the lady holding him was crying again, sobbing quietly, so he cried, too.

“That’s not—it’s not fair,” he said.

“I know, honey,” said the lady.

“It’s not—she’s suppo-osed to be—”

“I know.”

“But she _said_ she’d—”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. She was supposed to be here. She was supposed to be waiting for him. Akira said she was; so why wasn’t she?

Had he lied to Goro, to get his way back home?

 _After all the things you’ve done, that’s what you’re getting mad about?_ teased some corner of his mind.

But it was true, wasn’t it? Mama wasn’t here. Mama was dead, even though Akira said that she was waiting for him to come home, that she would always be waiting, that she missed him so much—

 _No_ , he thought. Akira wouldn’t lie. Akira hated lying almost as much as he hated fighting and fighting to be heard. Akira knew how badly a lie like this would hurt Goro. He would never have been able to tell it.

“She’s supposed to be here,” he finally said again, the tears already drying up. What was the rest of his life compared to ten-thousand years? It was nothing; it was a drop of water in a bucket, or the ocean. How could he miss what he didn’t remember?

But his jaw still trembled. He looked at the officers, both of them now back to staring at him like that lady in the lab coat, and briefly considered running away. He could go back home—and do what? If Mama was really dead, they would follow him there. If she wasn’t, this was a cruel prank to play on a child.

“I know,” the woman holding him said again. “I know, honey. I know.”

* * *

To Goro’s surprise, the officers did take him home. They asked if he had anyone to look after him, and all he could answer as he put Mama’s dinner in the fridge was that the landlady might do it if she got paid enough. The kinder one sighed, scrubbed at his face, and stayed inside while his partner left to make a call.

“Can I call someone, too?” Goro asked.

“Oh, well,” the officer stammered, looking from him to the door and back again.

“Please?” he said, hating how young he sounded, how pathetic—but it made the officer relent, and he took the house phone into the bedroom and shut the door. He stared at the numbers on its face, the glyphs meaning nothing for a bewildering minute, like they had on the business card earlier, before his brain made long-unused connections: that was a one, that was a four, that was a nine.

He punched in one of the spells Akira taught him, and waited while the phone rang, and rang, and rang, until someone picked up.

“If it’s too early, I might not remember you,” Akira had warned him. They’d talked about it—time travel, and what to do if they couldn’t contact each other—and Goro hoped it wasn’t the case.

“Amamiya speaking,” said the woman on the phone, and Goro’s heart sank. “Who is it?”

“Uh, it’s, um,” Goro said. Akira had told him what to say, what was it, why couldn’t he remember— “Is—um, is Akira—I mean, Ren—there?”

“Ren? You’re a classmate of his, then?”

Ren. Akira’s old name from before he was Akira—it had to be the right person. “Yes! Is he there? Can I talk to him?”

He expected her to question him—what was his name, his class, his seat number—and if she did, Goro didn’t know what he would do. Instead she hummed and said, “I think he’s still doing his homework. I’ll go let him know you’re on the phone, alright?”

“Yes! Yes, please,” he said, becoming aware of the officer still in his house, probably sitting in the kitchen or going through the notes on the calendar. He could have been listening in through the door. He probably was; Goro wandered over to the closet and shut himself inside. The slats let in a few weak bars of light that played across his knees like wounds.

_She got in an accident, Goro—_

Goro shut his eyes. Mama was a ten-thousand-year-old memory for him. All he wanted was to see her again. Was he so unwanted that even the gods didn’t care for his happiness? Was he—was he just a speck of dirt in their all-seeing eyes?

“Hello?” the boy on the other side of the phone said, and Goro sobbed.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked, unaware of the truths he would know in ten or fifteen years—that he was nothing, that they all were nothing, that no one could ever be happy because God was too busy loving dirt to care about people.

Though his voice wavered and broke, Goro said, “Akira, Mama, she—”

“Your Mama?” asked the boy. “Did something happen to her?”

Goro was oddly relieved to hear the concern in his voice—this boy wasn’t Akira, not yet, but he still cared, still wanted to know, still wanted to help. It was more than Goro ever got from the bullies. They’d probably laugh at him until they hung up, but Akira would never. Akira promised.

_I was lonely, too._

“Mama’s—she’s—it’s not _fair_ ,” he said.

“Yeah,” the boy agreed, too easily, just the way Akira would. “You want to talk about it?”

Goro tried to. He tried, but the words seemed to get stuck somewhere—Mama’s dead; Mama’s not here anymore; Akira said she was, and Akira never lied—and all he would manage to get out was a strangled noise after a word or two. There was something wrong with him—the little slats of light had gone fuzzy around their edges, and there was a distant murmuring chant to an accompanying drumbeat outside, and his stomach still felt hard. He hated every second of it.

There was muttering on Akira’s side of the phone at one point, but it was all lost under that drumbeat. The officer, pacing in the hallway. The drums, heralding his revelation as savior of the world—

And it wasn’t fair. He could save an entire planet, but he couldn’t save Mama?

“Akira,” he said, once the cold truth set in: he could save billions but not the one he wanted. He could make everyone else in the entire world happy but not be allowed happiness himself. Everyone else could have what he’d been craving for thousands of years while he stood on the sidelines and was told to be happy about it.

 _No_ , he thought. He would be happy even if it meant taking that happiness for himself, because the world was never going to give him any. No one cared except for Akira, and Akira wasn’t here.

But he would be, one day.

“Yeah?” the boy asked. He’d been so patient, letting Goro talk without saying a single coherent thing, and Goro—Goro was almost afraid to ask for any more.

But he could still hear the drumbeats—he could still hear the chanting—the swaths of the robe they’d dressed him in were stifling and hot and he hadn’t been able to see a thing except for a slit of light just under eye-level.

“Will you be my friend?” he dared. “I don’t want to be alone. Mama’s not—not here anymore. I don’t want to be alone. You promised. You promised we’d always be—”

“Friends,” the boy said, at the same time he did. Goro could practically hear him smile. “Friends, huh—but, um, friends know each other’s names, right? You’ve been calling me Akira this whole time. My name’s Ren.”

Akira. Ren. What did it matter? In ten years he would be the person Goro remembered, and then everything would be right again.

“Ren,” Goro said anyway, trying it out through a throat that screamed at him. He slid the closet door open; dusk had settled in gloomy patches through the window that were broken by the strobe of police lights. “Ren,” he said again, swallowing down the fear. If Akira was here, he could get through this. “I’m Goro.”

“Goro,” said the boy—said _Ren_ , seven-years-old and lonely just like Goro was. This time he was sure Ren was smiling on the other end as he said, “Then, let’s be good friends, okay?”

“The best of friends,” Goro promised.

* * *

Yuuki Mishima stared out at the city skyline. Clouds were caught among the lights, and a shift in the wind brought the first raindrops of the spring storm he’d been waiting for.

It was late. It was early. It was dark and wet and someone, surely, would question why he was up here on the roof of his apartment building. He couldn’t say it was for the fresh air—it was foul, and smelled mostly of exhaust—but he’d had another of those nights where sitting around in his room waiting for sleep made him antsy. Restless.

All he wanted to do was sleep, and he couldn’t even do that.

He hooked a hand through the fence. Anyone with half a mind to could climb it. He could climb it. It would be easy—and if he slipped off on the other side, if he tumbled over the lip and couldn’t catch himself—

“Don’t,” drifted by his ear, so close he could feel the tickle of warm breath on his neck.

Yuuki spun around to find—no one. He was still alone, and it was still three in the morning, and it was raining even harder, now.

He touched his neck, where that bit of air had touched him, trying to find some explanation—a stray gust of exhaust from the pipe nearby, maybe an oddly warm raindrop or a bit of hair—but at the end, decided that it must be the lack of sleep.

Yeah, that had to be it. Just the lack of sleep, and his early morning volleyball practices, and his after school volleyball practices, and the piles of homework left to gather dust because there just weren’t enough hours in the day to do it all and he was so tired of it. Almost a whole year already and his grades were slipping and his parents were going to notice and question him and he wouldn’t have a good enough answer other than that he was tired.

So tired. So, so tired.

He turned back to the fence and let his forehead rest on the links. This high up the ground was a sea of darkness staved off by a few flickering lights no one had ever gotten around to changing. Anyone with half a mind to could climb the fence and join it. He could climb the fence and join it—

“Don’t!”

Again?

“Go away,” he said.

“ _Don’t!_ ”

“Shut _up_ ,” he begged it, but turned from the fence again.

Nothing. Great, now he was hearing things, too. At least the voice in his head didn’t sound like Coach Kamoshida barking orders at him from a foot away; Yuuki might have dared to say it sounded concerned. Anguished, almost. As if it didn’t want him to leave.

It didn’t have much to fear, there. Yuuki wasn’t nearly brave enough to climb the fence, even if it meant sleeping for the rest of his life. Yuuki wasn’t even brave enough to quit the volleyball team; he wasn’t even brave enough to tell his parents—

The stairwell door squeaked open. His dad stood there under the slight awning, sighing at the rain, a package of cigarettes and a lighter sticking out of his robe’s pocket. “Yuuki?” he asked. “What in the world are you doing up here?”

“Uh,” Yuuki said. “Getting some air.”

“Awful choice for air, son.”

He shrugged, noticing that whatever apparition that had been haunting his head was quiet now that his dad was around—Hirotaka Mishima would stop him, too, and do it bodily—and said, “The rain feels nice, I guess.”

Hirotaka hummed, tapping at his cigarette pack. Yuuki joined him as the rain got worse, forming puddles that soaked into their slippers and the hems of their pajamas.

“Maybe you should take off tomorrow,” Hirotaka suggested. “No use in going to school if you’re so tired nothing sticks.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“And maybe, when you’re older and I believe that, Yuuki, I’ll let you do it. I’ll make the call later.”

“You can’t sleep, either,” he argued. He could practically feel his dad’s raised brows—could practically hear him say, _well, I’m older and wiser, aren’t I?_

“Yuuki,” he said instead, “is something going on? Your mother told me she heard you wandering the apartment the other night when you should’ve been asleep. You can tell us if something’s going on, you know.”

Kamoshida. The brutal, hours-long practices. The bruises the second- and third-years were insisting would become callouses after long enough; Yuuki questioning in his head why volleyball players needed callouses on their arms. The homework. The _math_ homework.

As if his dad would understand a word. As if his dad wouldn’t say anything other than _tough it out_ , or _it’s harder in the real world, you know._

“Yeah,” Yuuki lied. “Of course I will.”

“I mean it,” his dad insisted. “Ever since you started at that school, you haven’t been the same. Is it the workload? Volleyball?”

Yuuki flinched at the mere mention of volleyball, but if his dad noticed in the dark, he didn’t comment. He’d chosen to go to Shujin because their volleyball team was the best. He’d chosen to join volleyball in the first place because it made others take note of him—of his position on the court, of his declarations that he had the ball, of him, period—so how could he start complaining now?

And after all the pamphlets and brochures his mother had left sitting around on the table—she and his dad clearly had expectations, ones Yuuki had yet to meet.

And Yuuki didn’t want to face them now. Not now, not yet, not ever.

“I’m just waiting for spring break,” he said, with a weak laugh. “I’ll get to sleep when I’m not at practice.”

“You aren’t sleeping now.”

“I had some soda on my way home. I’m sure it’ll wear off soon.”

If his dad suspected the lie, he didn’t say so. He shoved the pack of cigarettes back in his pocket and took Yuuki by the wrist. Thunder roiled overhead.

“I mean it,” Hirotaka said, sounding ten years older and far more tired than he had five minutes ago when he first appeared. “If there’s ever something you want to say, if there’s ever something you need anyone to hear, I’ll listen. I won’t judge you for being a person with a breaking point, Yuuki.”

A breaking point, right. Like those guys on the news going crazy and attacking people, or driving their cars into pedestrian traffic, or forgetting that brakes existed on trains.

Yuuki doubted he could ever hurt someone. Coach Kamoshida always said his arms were too scrawny—like a girl’s, and not like one of the girls on the team, either—and that his strikes had no bite, no power. That was the reason he was on the back-up string. That was the reason the whole team had to do serving drills for an extra ten or twenty minutes every practice.

 _Listen_. More like call the cops.

“Yeah,” Yuuki lied. “Of course I will.”

* * *

Akira Kurusu jolted at the sound of banging.

“Come on, kid, I ain’t got all night,” someone groaned, and he blinked. He took in the cell—white walls gone gray with age, the tiny cot he was about to roll out of, the door with the barred window open at last, an officer in a beige uniform squinting at him through sleepy eyes from the other side—

Not at the center of the universe anymore. Not—not with EXA_PICO, or with Goro, or drifting through space.

 _Home_.

He could cry. He did, faking a yawn behind his hand and wondering what he’d done to land himself in a jail cell—

Oh, the arrest.

“Have a nice nap, kid?” asked the officer.

Akira nodded, remembering the vague threats he’d gotten last time; no funny business, no back talk, no talking period. All Akira had done was walk up a hall but the guy had kept up a stream of orders that Akira had been too nervous to defy.

Now, the officer rolled his eyes. “Come on, then. Your folks’re here to take you home.”

His parents were here? “How are they?” he asked, without thinking.

“You’ll see.”

Angry, then. They’d been angry before—well, Before—and Akira vaguely remembered the sullen silence, the tight-lipped stares in his direction as he walked by, the hissed conversations when they thought he couldn’t hear. He learned how to be near-silent on his socked feet in that house; he learned how best to eavesdrop and when to get away and when to stay holed up in his room watching the same rented movie on mute for the sixth time that day just for something to do, and then his mother snapped and shouted and nearly had a heart attack just telling him to leave for one _goddamn_ day, for one _goddamn_ weekend.

And Akira had obliged.

Akira had no intention of going down without a fight this time.

The officer pushed ahead of him, shoving a badge or a keycard into the lock by the door. He grunted as he pulled it open; Akira shut his eyes and readied himself for the glares on his parent’s faces and opened them to find—

“Ren,” his mother said, from a stiff plastic chair that held her purse. From the way she was standing she’d been pacing, heedless of her heels. Akira found it hard to describe the look on her face: a mix between anger and concern; an upset confusion that he couldn’t understand. She hurried over, her hands reaching out to cup his face.

“Oh, Ren, dear,” she said, inspecting his cheeks and his temple and his neck, “you’re not hurt, are you? Oh, we were so worried, your father and I—but you’re okay, aren’t you? You didn’t get hurt?”

“I’m—fine, Mom,” he said, surprised by the way his voice shook and tried to break. His mother was crying, pulling him into a hug so he could hide against her shoulder even if he had to lean down to do it. Her nails scratched lightly at his scalp; he grabbed up her suit jacket in his fists and held her as tight as he dared.

After all, in a week he might lose her again.

His father came over, forgoing the usual shoulder-pat to wrap them up in a hug. Before, Akira had barely gotten a nod from the man. Before, he’d barely gotten anything at all.

This… was not Before. Something was different—not _wrong_ , but different. Had something from the other timeline stuck? Had his parents wished so desperately to do things over and do them right that it affected them now, when they should have no reason other than to be angry that he’d disrupted their plans and ruined their reputations all in one fell swoop?

“Take your time,” groused the officer, seated behind the desk with a pile of paperwork.

His mother laughed. “Goodness, Ren, it feels like it’s been ages—we’ve been so _worried_ —”

“You said that already, Mama,” his father rumbled.

“Well,” she huffed, “well, it’s true! What in the world happened, Ren? Why in the world would anyone want you arrested?”

“Mama,” his father said, “no one said that. You’re tired, dear. Ren must be tired, too.”

He shouldn’t be. He’d likely laid down for a quick nap that had, somehow, transformed into an hour or two, but he was exhausted. That was the price of connecting with a god and traveling through not only time and space but to a new timeline entirely; he stood now on a new axis of possibility, before he and Goro had disappeared.

(He tried not to think the other was gone. It had to still be there, somewhere—his Yuuki had to be there, waiting.)

After all, what else could that dream have been, except a way for him to keep Yuuki safe, here where they hadn’t met? That boy on a rooftop had felt so similar to Yuuki that Akira could swear their souls were the same—the same loneliness, the same desire for that loneliness to end, the same weak, trembling hope that wished maybe tomorrow would be better.

“I am tired,” he said, because his parents were waiting for a response and his mother would worry more if he didn’t give her one. “All that, uh, adrenaline wore off, I guess. And I had the—the weirdest dream. Just now.”

“Well, let’s not take up anymore of Officer Kuroda’s time, shall we?” his father said, with a chuckle. “We haven’t eaten dinner yet, either. Why don’t we talk then?”

“Please do,” Officer Kuroda mumbled, nose buried in his paperwork.

Akira expected him to glare over the sheets as his mother herded him out of the station—and he did, except once the door was open he added, “Kid. I don’t want to see you here again, got it?”

Akira paused for a moment, right in front of the door. In the glass the officer’s expression was twisted slightly, but there was the same look his mother had worn earlier, as if he was angry and didn’t know why. The officer Before had scowled when he left and muttered something about delinquents under his breath; this was not that man.

Or… it could have been the same man, but Akira was too tired to puzzle it out, and too grateful for the kind looks his parents were giving him. He had enough of anger and scorn.

What he wanted the most right now was love. What he’d wanted the most Before was love, too, but it looked like this time he was going to get it.

“Alright,” he said.

His mother sat in the back seat, a hand planted on his knee as she fussed over him—was he sure his wrists didn’t hurt? What did he mean, _not too badly_? Was he hurt _not too badly_ anywhere else, too?—and his father chuckled from the driver’s seat. It felt oddly surreal, after Before.

“You’re not mad?” he blurted out. Just to be sure. It could be some kind of trick, after all. Maybe they were waiting for him to lower his guard before they ripped him to pieces.

If they were, they were good at hiding it. His parents traded looks through the rearview mirror; his mother said, “Now, Ren, we are angry. You shouldn’t have done anything so dangerous as to get yourself arrested—but everyone in town knows how you are by now. I can’t help but think it wasn’t what you did but—”

“Who you stopped,” his father finished. “We met her when we got to the station. Officer Hirosawa was taking her home. She didn’t say it, but she looked, well…”

Akira could guess: grateful that he’d intervened but distraught because to save her own livelihood she was helping that—that _man_ ruin his life. It really had been forever; all he could remember now was darkness, and her cries for help turning into ones of anguish and the flashing lights of the police cruiser. That man had made her choose as his own face was split in two with a trail of blood. “I don’t blame her. She was just a victim.”

“And now you’re a victim, too, dear,” his mother said. “Do you—do you remember what he looked like? If he bragged about his job? We can—we can get someone to help, maybe—”

Akira tried to remember. A decent suit, the material fine under his hand. The smell of liquor strong on the air, even from paces away. His shoes were leather; they’d squeaked as they rubbed against each other as he twisted and fell; it was a ridiculous sound to accompany the thud of the man’s head hitting the guard rail. Akira had thought he was dead for a long, long moment.

And after, the man’s face twisted with pain and sobriety. The blood trickling down like liquid shadows; the glare that bared teeth when he spoke, promising ruin and the end of everything.

It was all drunk rambling. He hadn’t even looked happy to be ruining Akira’s life, just pissed that blood was staining his expensive shirt and he hadn’t been able to manhandle some poor woman into his car or hotel room for a quick fuck.

Then he thought of what Yuuki had told him, the mind-messages fuzzy in his panic: parents—blackmail—politician—ruin—

His parents had stood up for him, in the end. They’d risked everything to accuse one man, and he wondered how that went, sometimes. He hoped the bastard got what was coming to him.

“I don’t want to make this any harder,” Akira said, knowing that he had just by doing what they wanted that first time. He didn’t intend for this time to be the same.

“Don’t be silly, Ren,” his mother said, patting his knee. “This is—this is just as hard on you as it is on us. Harder, maybe, on you, dear. Thrown in jail just for helping someone, I can’t believe it!”

“We’ll get the word out, Ren,” his father said, flicking his eyes up to the rearview for a split second. Ren swore their gazes locked; there was steel in his father’s eyes as he signaled a turn. “We’ll make sure no one here will treat you like a criminal. We swear.”

* * *

Except it wasn’t that easy. Nothing was; if it was, Akira wouldn’t have been doing jail time, and he wouldn’t have been kidnapped right after, and then he wouldn’t have been forced to save an entire planet, twice.

The house arrest leading up to the trial he remembered—tip-toeing around his parents and through the halls, subsisting off of rice crackers and instant noodles because he was too afraid to cook, the whispered arguments his parents had in the dead of night, the weeks of hearing nothing from school until his mother had called him in to tell him he was expelled—was gone, leaving him reeling. Instead he had free range: if he mentioned wanting to make something, his parents would buy ingredients; if he wanted to spend all day cleaning out his room, they had no problem taking the sorted recyclables out.

(Akira flipped through the sketchbooks in his closet and dumped them too quickly into the paper goods pile. Never again, he thought. He should have done it the first time around.)

The strangest thing was finding envelopes with notes and homework assignments in it sitting on the table every morning, all of them dated for the day before. His homeroom teacher showed up Saturday evening to collect what he got through and told them all over tea that the only way he wasn’t going to be accepted back into school was with a conviction. He looked pleased with himself until the Amamiyas started trading looks over the table.

Akira was the one who told him, “I think it’s going to stick.”

(And in a tone as tacky as the blood running down his face. That glare, so full of hate; those ridiculous shoes, scuffed by the sidewalk.)

“Oh,” said the teacher, face falling. He searched the wood grain for answers and came up empty, his hands fidgeting with the cup.

“We thought so,” his mother said, “and we’ve started looking into schools that might take him next year. There haven’t been that many who are interested, but…”

The teacher jumped. Akira snapped out a hand to keep his cup from falling over as he said, “Yes! Yes, we’ll—we’ll put in a good word! There’s nothing wrong with Amamiya’s grades, and he does well enough on the gymnastics team—any school should want him!”

They traded business cards across the table, Akira’s homeroom teacher assuring them the school would do everything it could to ensure a successful transfer. His parents stayed up late that night at the table, brochures and pamphlets spread over the surface, laptops and phones displaying websites and Contact Us pages. He only went to bed when he refilled their cups for the sixth time and got shooed out of the room.

They passed the time like that for weeks, Akira doing his homework in the morning and cleaning in the afternoon, his parents at work or at the dining table, setting up meetings and interviews and video calls.

It was nerve-wracking in its own way, not getting under their feet, being allowed to flip through every brochure on the table and stopping on a page of a pair of students in olive-green jackets chatting over homework.

He sucked in a breath.

He’d forgotten about Goro.

“Oh, we already checked that one,” his mother said. “Since that friend of yours goes there, we thought it would be nice, but the entrance qualifications—with your grades…”

“My… friend?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, slowly, frowning. “Your friend, Ren. The one who calls you every two or three months, and then you talk on the phone for hours? The one who’s been on TV lately?”

“TV,” he said, still not understanding.

“Oh, what was his name,” his mother said, pressing her hands to her temples. His father came up behind her and squeezed her shoulders and Akira’s heart trembled in his chest—that could have been him with Yuuki by now if everything wasn’t so lopsided. Time-and-space travel was much less exciting when it didn’t involve residual feelings from a future already past.

Just thinking about it all made his head hurt.

“That detective boy, right?” his father asked. “Akechi, like in those books.”

… He really needed to talk to Goro.

His mother gasped. “The handsome one! _Now_ I remember! And you looked so stupefied to see his face on TV, Ren! How could I have forgotten!”

“It’s been a long few weeks, Mama,” his father said. Akira looked away as he pressed a kiss into her hair.

Never mind being chased out. He’d run out the door and down the street if it brought him closer to Yuuki and away from all of the displays of affection his parents could show each other that made his heart do flips and sent spikes of jealous desire running through his core.

“I’ll call him,” he said, though his parents were too busy murmuring to each other to notice.

But as the door to his room slid shut and his phone was tugged out of his pocket, he hesitated. There was no guarantee this was the same Goro he remembered—there was absolutely no way this was the same Goro he remembered, eight-years-old and five-thousand at the same time and angry at the universe.

But he’d said they were friends, and Akira wasn’t about to abandon him.

“ih=mou-n;” he said, as soon as Goro picked up.

“Oh, so now you remember,” Goro said, annoyance behind his pleasant tone. He sounded older than Akira remembered and also exactly as he remembered—they’d talked on the phone two weeks before his arrest. Goro had mentioned a new cafe he wanted to try; Akira—Ren—had scolded him for not eating right, then sighed that he was jealous Goro could afford to eat at cafes and restaurants and diners so often.

Goro sighed, drowning out the background noise of dozens of people. Akira swore he heard one squeal _It’s Goro Akechi—_ “Look, calm down. Take a few breaths. Maybe call me back when I’m not surrounded by people?”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Akira said. He worried at his jeans with his free hand, then slid it into his pocket to thumb at lint.

Another, heavier sigh. “If you think for more than two seconds, you could remember everything you’re about to ask me.”

“It won’t be the same. Actually, it’s not,” he insisted. “You’re still this kid in my head. What happened? You’re a detective now? You’re on _TV_?”

“It’s been so good to hear from you,” Goro said, voice sickeningly-sweet and not at all like the Goro Akira left, and yet so much like that boy on TV he was beginning to see it, almost, “but I really must be going now. I’ll call you back later.”

Without waiting, he hung up.

Akira stared at the rug on his floor, listening to the silence Goro left him with. Goro had been lonely, and he’d clearly taken attention wherever he could get it, but—

A detective? A detective—

(“—and they said they want me as an intern this year, Ren,” Goro told him, breathless with wonder and excitement. Ren’s bedroom was cold in the January chill, and he hunched under a blanket at his desk, working on homework while Goro chattered. “ _Me_. They—they want to hear the deductions _I_ come to. They want to listen to me, they want _me_ to help them solve cases—”

Ren, stuck on a difficult problem, set down his pencil and stretched. “See?” he said. “Somebody else knows you’re not a nobody, Goro.”

And Goro went quiet at his comment, long enough that Ren checked to see if he hadn’t hung up on him—but the call was still going, and a much less enthusiastic Goro replied, “Someone else. Yes, I—I see.”)

And no matter the probing, Goro hadn’t told him what was wrong. Akira hadn’t known much about him back then, but the shame he’d exuded even over the phone had been palpable.

But, why?

Akira scrubbed at his face, tugged at his hair. The phone sat next to him, innocent, and yet he wanted to throw it against the wall; instead he took in a deep breath and let it out, and took in another and let that one out slowly, too.

There was only one thing Goro would be ashamed about, and Akira hoped it wasn’t true.

“Goro,” he said, to his phone or the air or whatever god was listening, “what have you gotten yourself into?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse me as I completely butcher Emotional Song Pact for this fic, and if you see anything that needs to be tagged but isn't, let me know.
> 
> ih=mou-n; should roughly translate to "I remembered."


	2. The Moon, Rank 0

Akira wasn’t sure what to think. “It’s big,” he forced out, because it was technically the truth.

The cafe’s attic was also dusty, and covered in the detritus of a decade or two’s worth of old, forgotten items—there was a bike behind the stair railing, he was very sure he spotted the blank screen of a CRT TV underneath a pile of books—and…

It wasn’t as if Mr. Sakura didn’t come up here. There were tarps thrown over the books. There was a bed that was no more than a lumpy old mattress on some old beer crates. There were giant bags of coffee beans sitting on the shelf.

Mr. Sakura grunted. “Don’t get cheeky,” he snapped. “Now, I have a shop to run. Don’t bother my customers, got that?”

“Yes,” Akira said. He was still trying to figure out if those crates would support his weight or not. Maybe if he was careful…

“Good,” Mr. Sakura said, before turning on his heel and leaving Akira to himself. Every step creaked on his way down to the shop floor, and Akira felt his stomach dropping with every passing second.

This dusty cafe attic was going to be his home for the next year. He was going to _sleep_ in here, on that dust trap of a mattress, on crates that might break the moment he sat down. He was going to do his homework up here, where the lighting was reduced to a pair of bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling and a window trapped in shade most of the day.

“Mr. Sakura is really a very kind man,” his mother had assured him. “To think he’d agree to take you in while you went to school—try to help him out a bit, won’t you Ren?”

Help him out, right. As if Akira was going to be allowed near the kitchen. Maybe he’d be designated busboy for the year, or janitor.

But the attic was better than the cell. It might not have been well-lit, but it wasn’t stark and bare, and unless Mr. Sakura was hiding a portal to another dimension under the stacks of books, there weren’t any monsters or scientists or linguists around to push knowledge into his head as fast as possible.

Akira just… hadn’t expected this.

(“Mr. Sakura?” he asked his mother at the table. She’d never mentioned him before; it was strange that she was now.

She smiled at him. “Yes! Apparently he runs a cafe; you’ll be able to learn about what it’s like to work while you’re there, too. It can’t be any harder than gymnastics, can it?”

“No, but…”

“Ren, dear,” his mother said, placing her hand on his arm at the look on his face. “If we weren’t sure he was going to treat you well, we wouldn’t be sending you there. He won’t be cruel to you.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” he argued.

“I do know it,” she insisted. “Mother’s intuition. He’ll be good to you, I promise. Emiko wouldn’t have suggested him if he weren’t.”

“Emiko?”

“Oh, you know—Emiko. My old friend from…” she frowned in thought, grip tightening. “From—oh, when was it? College? No, later than that…”

The old timeline. Yuuki didn’t live here in this backwater of a town and neither did Mr. Sakura, and his parents never had a reason to go to Tokyo, ever. Emiko must have taken them there, then, to meet the cafe owner, and she must have had a reason.

Yuuki, he thought. It all came down to Yuuki.

Outwardly he quipped, “Don’t hurt yourself trying to remember. You’re getting old, you know.”

She swatted at him for it, and laughed, but the faint discomfort at not remembering lingered in her eyes.)

He shook his head. The old connections were still there, somehow, despite there being every reason not to be, and he kept having to remind himself not to question it too much. It could have been a fault of EXA_PICO’s; it could have just been too many crossed wires, far more than Akira had known about, mucking up the transfer, and the god had shrugged their shoulders at the mess and left him to deal with the aftermath.

It was just like a god, Akira thought, to be that petty and indifferent.

He eyed the mess one more time: the dust; the thing Mr. Sakura said was a bed; the piles of books like waterlogged coins, their pages swollen with months or years of moisture. He was going to have to _live_ here, and he didn’t want the first thing he saw to be tarps. He didn’t want to stub his toes in the dark on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

He sighed, plunked his bag and jacket down on the box of his belongings sitting in the middle of the floor, and got to work. It was easy, almost mindless, after the weeks spent cleaning his own home: dusting, sorting the books, taking out the trash, scrubbing the dirt off the floor. Mr. Sakura came up once to ask what the fuss was about and was startled by the organized chaos Akira had created in only a few hours. Akira asked him what to do with the books, but he shook his head and mumbled something Akira couldn’t make out and creaked his way back down to the cafe.

If Mr. Sakura were his parents, Akira would have done something definitive with them. Tossed the ones he couldn’t read out with the recyclables, given the others away to the second-hand shop he’d seen on his way here. Someone would want them.

But Mr. Sakura wasn’t his parents. Akira cleared a path to the other side of the attic and left the books there; the man could decide what to do with them on his own time.

When the attic was clean and his stomach was complaining, Akira finally sat on the ratty, threadbare couch along the wall and looked over his handiwork: it was clean, sure, but still dingy; it smelled less like dust and must and more like the cleaner Mr. Sakura had sitting around in his bathroom.

It still didn’t feel like enough, but it was all Akira could do at the moment.

He sat there for a while, contemplating the TV and the potted plant and wondering whether he was supposed to go to the bathhouse across the alley every day for the next year—how much money would that come to? How many days could he get away with not bathing if he didn’t have the fee?—before the stairs creaked again. Mr. Sakura appeared, scowling at the attic, before barking that the shop was closed, he was going home, _don’t you dare get into any trouble while I’m gone, boy_.

Akira nodded. He waited for the bell over Leblanc’s door to chime before wondering if Mr. Sakura would mind if he used the kitchen—probably, since it was his business. His stomach complained again.

Maybe… if it was just water… if he just went down to boil some water for the noodles he packed, it would be okay.

* * *

Yuuki almost wanted to collapse into his desk as the whispers of his classmates started up.

The transfer student was here. Late, on his first day. Late, and showing up with Sakamoto to boot.

He almost felt proud of himself for warning his classmates about the trouble that was about to come waltzing in the door. Almost.

“Alright, settle down,” Ms. Kawakami said, glaring as a few nervous giggles went on longer than she liked. “So, today—”

Yuuki tuned her out. The transfer student was a dark blur in the door, all black and red splotches. His hair looked like a bird’s nest. Yuuki wondered if he knew what a brush was.

His classmates tittered again as the transfer student bowed, his bag on his shoulder nearly hitting him in the face. “I’m Ren Amamiya,” he said, sounding as if the name was foreign and he was just getting used to saying it. “But you can call me Akira, if you’d like. I hope we get along.”

That just set off more whispers. So did his half-smile as he surveyed the room for his seat; so did Takamaki’s snarl as he moved by her.

Yuuki sighed. It was going to be a long year.

… It was going to be even longer if his practices kept up like this, too, he thought, hours later. His muscles screamed. Coach Kamoshida screamed, too: “Get up, Nishima! You think you’ll go to Nationals like this? You think a National-level team collapses at twenty laps? Get up!”

His teammates hovered nearby. Some of them were dribbling, passing the ball back and forth aimlessly while Kamoshida screamed and screamed; others were staring openly. No one dared to move for the locker room until Kamoshida ordered them to leave—and he wouldn’t until Yuuki got up, but his legs were well-cooked noodles. They refused to move.

Yuuki caught one of the senior’s eyes. _Get up_ , he mouthed, and made a rising motion with his hands. But Yuuki couldn’t, not even when he summoned the last of his willpower, tried to put even another ounce of strength back into his legs. The girls stared from the other side of the court; Suzui looked past him, staring blankly at nothing.

Suzui. Takamaki. He’d heard them making plans to go somewhere after practice. If he took any longer, they’d have to cancel. It would be his fault.

Yuuki grit his teeth and pushed himself up onto his elbows. His legs still refused to move, so he dragged himself an inch or two forward—and cried out at the blow to his side.

“When I say get up and finish your laps, Nishima,” Kamoshida said, staring down at him, a ball in one meaty hand, “I mean you get on your _feet_ and you _run_ them. Like you’re supposed to.”

Yuuki, with his nose smarting from the dive it had done into the floor, tried to speak. Tried to say he couldn’t get up, couldn’t move, even if he wanted to, but all that came out was a whine.

“Oh, I see,” was Kamoshida’s gleeful response. The teams backed away, slowly; even the ones who’d been dribbling to look productive were inching to the doors. “You want a private lesson, Nishima! Why didn’t you just say so? We can be here all night if you like—just you, me, and the laps you haven’t finished yet!”

There was no pity in his teammates eyes. Suzui looked like she was crying, silently, but no one came to his defense. He nodded, too weak for anything else.

“Well, isn’t that nice!” Kamoshida laughed, grandstanding for his audience. “Nishima wants a private lesson! The rest of his teammates can go home!”

The gym had never cleared faster. Yuuki pressed his cheek into the floor, trying to will something—anything—to move. Anything to go home a few hours early. Anything to sit in the locker room, curled up in a corner, until it was time for the school to open again. Anything for another glorious sick day, where he’d gotten to sleep as much as he wanted, eaten anything he liked out of the fridge, caught up on his homework watching mind-numbing TV…

A ball slammed to the floor beside his head. He was too tired to jump.

Kamoshida glared back at him, another ball primed in his hand. “Get up.”

Yuuki dragged in a shaky breath and summoned some last reserve of energy that had been too shy to appear before. Stage fright, maybe, he thought, as he slowly, shakily, got to his feet. A ball slammed into the floor behind him as he stood there, trying to get the room to stop spinning.

“Get moving, Nishima.”

Yuuki could hear the creak as Kamoshida picked up another ball. He forced one foot forward, then the other, teeth worrying at his lip at the shakiness of his knees.

“Faster, Nishima,” came the warning. “I told you thirty laps, _running_. So why aren’t you running?”

Yuuki didn’t dignify that with a response—it would be wrong, anyway—and tried to move faster. The next ball slammed into his calf, knocking him off-balance. He collapsed to the floor.

“You’d think a bench-warmer would try harder,” Kamoshida sneered, hands on his hips, staring down. Always staring down. Always looking and acting like he had the run of the place—he did, and he knew it, and he knew his teams knew it, too—and swaggering around the gym, like he was now, coming to a stop before Yuuki.

“Get up.”

Yuuki tried. One of his legs moved, slowly, like it was encased in cement five feet thick, but the other refused to listen. Only his fingers twitched, like the barest sign of life on some cold, distant planet.

He didn’t know how long they waited—Kamoshida, standing there with his unblinking glare; Yuuki, with a heart that felt fit to pop right out of his chest—but eventually Kamoshida sighed. “Do it crawling, then, Nishima,” he sneered, his sneakers squealing back across the court. “You can do that much, can’t you? Crawl on your knees like the pathetic worm you are. But you’ll finish your damn laps.”

Crawling, Yuuki found, was much easier than running. It was even easier than walking—for one thing, he was already on the floor, and no more of Kamoshida’s spikes could knock him back down again; for another, it was strangely easier to take the hits to his back and the backs of his legs instead of the front. It was as if he’d gone numb from weeks and weeks of pain, and he considered himself lucky Kamoshida didn’t dare to aim at his head.

His back was aching and sore by the time his laps were done. His knees felt fit to split right open under him; he was surprised to look back at the edge of the gym and not find a trail of blood behind him, as bruised and cut as they felt. Kamoshida flexed his palm, looking him over.

“So, Nishima. Next time, what will you do?”

Yuuki had regained enough breath to say, “Finish my laps. Running. Sir.”

“Good,” Kamoshida cheered, and then stalked from the gym, shutting the lights off as he went.

Yuuki collapsed on his side, trying not to focus on the mess he left behind: the balls scattered around, the nets still stretched across the courts, the dirt and grime that had worked its way onto the floors digging into his legs, his cheek.

Sometime after—Yuuki wasn’t sure if he fell asleep, sweaty and aching, there on the gym floor—the doors swung open again. There was the squeak and squeal of sneakers, the hiss of whispers, the grate of the volleyball cart as it was pushed, one wheel shrieking a complaint. Someone pressed a water bottle, ice-cold from the vending machine, to his other cheek.

He groaned.

“Oh, good. He didn’t kill you,” said Takaoka, one of the third-years. He’d broken his nose so often in practice it had a permanent bend to it; Yuuki cracked open an eye to stare at the knob.

One of the other third-years snorted. “Probably ‘cause Mishima spread all those rumors around. Thinks he’s being considerate. Thinks he’s being smart.”

“He is being smart,” one of the girls said. “How else would he have gotten away with this for so long?”

“Kamoshida. The transfer student.” Another snort. “I can kinda see why Sakamoto went off on him last year. Wonder what the almighty Kamoshida might look like with a black eye.”

They all took a moment to envision it: Kamoshida, one eye swollen shut, the skin around it black and blue like the bruises on their arms and legs. It didn’t take much effort to fill in the rest of him: his livid glare, the angry twist of his sneer, how unavoidable his rage would be once they were behind gym doors…

They all shivered. Takaoka helped Yuuki sit up, though his back screamed in protest, and urged him to down a few bites of banana. It would help, he said, but he always said so, and Yuuki wasn’t feeling any difference between now and last year, when he’d still felt worn out enough to never move again. Only the promise that it got better eventually had kept him going—that and the punishment he knew he’d receive whenever Kamoshida had the luxury of teaching his gym class if he dared to quit.

“Rest up for a bit, okay? We’ll take you to the locker room once we’re done cleaning up,” Takaoka said, and Yuuki nodded, though it felt like his head might snap off.

He thought of the rooftop, and the spring rainstorm, and the stink of the exhaust pipes.

He thought of Kamoshida’s sneer and his smug grin as he broke every rule in the book to get Yuuki to expose the new transfer student’s record. The way he’d said, “He needs to know his place.”

Because he did, Yuuki thought. The transfer student needed to know, as soon as possible, that defying Kamoshida just wasn’t an option. Keeping him from making friends also kept him from asking too many questions, kept him from talking to his probation officer, kept the police out of the school…

And if no one took him seriously, if everyone believed he was dangerous, then…

(Then he’d be alone, as alone as Yuuki was, and that didn’t seem fair—but so was joining a school for its acclaimed volleyball team only to find out it was run by a sadistic dictator who probably got off on breaking kid’s arms with his spikes. So was not being able to leave.)

Then he’d be safe, Yuuki realized. Ostracized and an outcast, but safe, which meant he was better off than most of the students at the school. That was why Kamoshida hated him so much without ever having met him: he still didn’t know who ruled over them all like a tyrant. He wouldn’t know to keep his head down and follow the rules.

Yuuki almost envied him.

* * *

“So, uh,” Ryuji said, scrutinizing Akira once they were both safely on the rooftop. No one came up here, he was assured, and yet the pile of old desks and chairs in the corner and the rows of flower boxes with stems just poking out of the dirt said otherwise.

Maybe Ryuji only said that because he’d scared the other students off.

“You said your name was—”

“Akira,” Akira said, tugging off his glasses. He’d never get used to wearing them. He wasn’t sure what his mom was thinking when she gave them to him; they were already covered in smudges and fingerprints, and he used his blazer to wipe them off. “My name’s actually Ren, Ren Amamiya, but I don’t really like it. It doesn’t suit me.”

_Not anymore,_ he almost added, but held his tongue. That would be opening a can of worms he wasn’t ready to get into.

“Uh, okay,” Ryuji said. “And that weird thing on your phone—”

“No idea where it came from.”

“What? Dude, come on,” Ryuji whined. Akira felt for him—he really, really did—but weird phone apps showing up out of the blue was something Akira was all too familiar with. He’d lived on the other side of one for years. He’d met the love of his life through it. Akira owed his life to weird phone apps; he wasn’t about to question where it came from or why, just what he was supposed to do with it.

“I don’t know what I don’t know.”

“Dude,” Ryuji whined again, leaning back in his chair. One of the legs made an awful screeching noise; Akira gave up on his glasses and shoved them back on.

“Speaking of what I don’t know,” Akira said, “Ms. Kawakami told me to stay away from you. How come?”

Ryuji snorted. “Kamoshida—or whatever that thing was—told ya everything. I’m a delinquent, a traitor. If ya want to be seen as a goody-two-shoes, you’ll steer clear.”

“Not happening.” Especially not after Ryuji had stood there in that cell and told him to run, to let him die, to _go, already_ —and Akira had refused to, saving both his life and the not-a-cat Morgana in the process. Power ran through his blood, now, just as it had back on Ra Ciela, though it was power of his own making, and not borrowed from a Genom or translated through a tron. “Pick something else.”

Ryuji sat his chair down with a thunk. He grinned from ear to ear, bright and infectious. “You’re pretty weird, you know that?”

Akira was very aware of that. Wanting to save everyone he came across wasn’t exactly a desired trait. He nodded.

“Then we can both be outcasts, I guess. That’s, uh, cool. But that’s also not why I wanted to talk to ya—it’s about that castle thing.” Ryuji paused. Akira hiked his bag a little higher on his shoulder. “I know it’s dangerous n’ all, but—look, I’m worried. There were other people trapped in there, just like we were. I can’t just leave ‘em there.”

“They might not be real, Ryuji.”

“Yeah, but there’s every chance one of ‘em is! If you don’t wanna go, I’ll just go myself, okay? I just”—he scuffed his shoe—“I can’t leave ‘em. Not if they need help. And if we can get any proof of all the abuse that bastard’s doin’, all the better, right?”

“And if we can’t?”

_**Being cautious, are we?**_ Arsene asked.

The old Akira—Ren—would have rushed in without a second’s thought. If people needed help, then he had to help them; it was the only way he got any attention, and later, it was the only way he knew to survive. Favors beget favors, after all, and the scared princeling he’d been for two years had banked on it: he believed that if he helped as many people as possible, one of them would send him home.

It wasn’t true. They’d all been selfish, or powerless, or both.

_There’s too much we don’t know,_ Akira told him. _I can’t go into this blind, not if it can be used against me later._

_**Some would say that’s a coward’s way out. Are you too frightened to fight for your justice?** _

_It won’t be just mine. Not anymore._

“Dude, I dunno,” Ryuji was saying. “I don’t really get all that stuff—fake worlds and—and manifolds of the psychometry and shit like that—”

“That’s not even a word,” Akira said, and went to tug at his hair—only to smack into his glasses. He shoved his hand in his pocket instead, finding the edges of his phone, a portal to another world.

He wanted to. He really did. But it would just be him fighting, all alone. He’d never fought all on his own before—at least, he’d never won, and Kamoshida was sure to have stronger guards than pumpkin ghosts. That not-a-cat wasn’t going be around all the time to help them out, either.

_**So you are scared of failure? What chance do you have if you don’t bother to try, child?** _

“I can’t just die in some mind-castle thing,” he told both of them: Ryuji, bewildered by the sudden change in topic, and Arsene, amused by the thoughts flitting through his mind. He only had a year in Tokyo to find Yuuki and try to kindle what they’d lost, and he didn’t want to spend it a shriveled corpse in a dungeon.

But he sighed, tossing out the argument. Ryuji wouldn’t understand how badly Akira wanted to find Yuuki—how badly he wanted to see the person attached to the voice he could barely remember, how badly he wanted to know what he looked like and what it would be like to hold his hand for real.

“So you’re just gonna sit back and watch?” Ryuji asked, at the same time Arsene said: _**So you’ll leave them to their fate, then?**_

This Arsene, born from his own soul, was so different from the one he’d met on Ra Ciela: the cowardly little Dream Genom, a crow with a tiny top hat and monocle, always shrinking from Ren and his duty. _I’m not strong enough,_ he would say. _I don’t have that kind of power. There are better Genom out there, stronger Genom, ones that can help you win—_

Akira and the current Arsene didn’t have any kind of power to take on those monsters in that other world but themselves. Arsene had to know this, yet he was pushing Akira into danger.

Ryuji had to know it, too—he was even weaker than Akira. He stood no chance against the guards or the monsters or against Kamoshida himself, and yet he was trying harder than Akira was, was ready and willing to throw himself into danger.

Akira couldn’t just let him. But…

“I can’t just die in some mind-castle thing,” Akira repeated. “I can’t just throw myself into this; if we get caught by anyone, even here, we’re done for. Never mind an expulsion, I’ll be going straight to jail, and I won’t sit around in another cell. If you really want to do this, you’ll keep your mouth shut and do it quietly. No yelling, no screaming, no pissed-off rants. Not like last time.”

“Get in, get out,” Ryuji said, scratching at his nose. “I can… probably manage it—”

“Not probably. You will. It’ll be easier to avoid those guards if we’re quiet.”

Akira realized it before—those suits of armor were loud. The hollow clanking as they’d come running, one after the other, had echoed across the dungeon. One of them couldn’t sneak up on them unless they were being louder.

“I’ve got no problem helping you out,” he went on. “I’m a student here, too, now, which means Kamoshida’s going to be my teacher. It’d be better if I learned how to deal with him sooner rather than later.”

Because if it was a mind-world similar to the ones Akira dealt with on Ra Ciela, there was going to be a way to cut out the root of his disease. It felt odd, being the one doing the cutting this time.

He shoved down a thought of whether his own heart was like this—vile, cruel, needy—and walked over to the edge of the roof. He could see the gym from here, and dozens of boys and girls ran laps around its perimeter. He thought he saw Mishima, struggling toward the back, but it was hard to tell: all of them were drenched with sweat despite practice barely beginning, their hair clinging in darkened strands to their faces, their shirts clinging to their skin. The girls wore black and blue and red. Dark colors.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any girls in the dungeon…

Ryuji, eager and ready to go, asked, “So, that’s a yes, then? We’ll go?”

Some niggling part of Akira told him it was a bad idea. Security would be tight after yesterday, and they knew nothing about the layout of the place. They’d be going in blind and playing it entirely by ear—but Akira had done that before. He’d done that for years, believing everything he was told because he had no other choices.

But the heart didn’t lie. The world reflected inside the mind—the world as Kamoshida saw it—wasn’t a lie. Akira almost dared to believe it was the truth.

He sighed. “Yeah. We’ll go.”

He just hoped it wasn’t a mistake.

* * *

Getting home was always difficult. Getting out of the elevator was even harder, but Yuuki took heart in the fact that once he was home, he’d be able to sleep. Forget dinner and a bath—all he wanted was the embrace of his bed.

He hoped today would be one of those days when his parents were out late working. He wasn’t sure if he could sit upright through an entire meal that wouldn’t taste of anything; he wasn’t even sure if he could sit in the bath until the water got cold without drowning on accident. Not even a week ago he’d been so wired he couldn’t sleep even when he wanted to; now he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open whenever he sat down long enough.

It was the transfer student’s fault. Now that he was here, Yuuki didn’t have to wonder if Kamoshida would single him out for failing at such a simple task as leaking his record. Now Yuuki only had to wonder how long it would be before he snapped, and whether Yuuki would be a victim or not.

He hoped not, but his luck was sitting firmly in the crapper—the kitchen light was on as he opened the door and toed his shoes off, trying to slouch through the living room and on to bed before his mother’s voice rang out. “You’re late.”

Yuuki flinched. Readjusted his bag, trying to slip off his shoulder. “I was at practice.”

“This late?”

Yuuki only nodded. He couldn’t look at her, so he stared at the fridge, at the dishes in the sink, at the wrapped plates and bowls set out for him on the table.

“If you’re practicing so much, you should be on the starting lineup, shouldn’t you?”

He had no words for that. It was clear that no matter how hard he practiced he’d never be good enough to be anything but a bench-warmer, but his mother would never see that. She’d never understand that for every extra hour of practice Yuuki put in to get even a fraction better, someone else was putting in the same time and getting actual results. He’d never catch up.

“Answer me, Yuuki.”

“Everyone else works hard, too,” he offered, but could sense her eye roll.

“Is that what you’re doing? Working hard? Look at me when I talk to you.”

He did, focusing on her nose and not the pinched mouth, the wrinkles by her eyes, the tapping finger on the table. Wisps of hair fell into her eyes and she pushed them back, only to continue glaring; on the table, by the plates of dinner, were his recent tests, covered in more red marks than he cared to admit to. His math scores barely reached double digits.

She noticed him scanning the tests and asked, “Is this ‘working hard’, Yuuki?”

He couldn’t answer. His bag slipped from his shoulder, landing on one foot. He barely felt it, barely felt the cold chill in his stomach at the thought of her digging through the papers on his desk.

“And your position—you aren’t on the starting lineup. You’ve been sitting on the bench, _cheering_ , for over a year now! Is that what you’re good at? You’re a first-string cheerleader with a brain to match?”

He shook his head. “I’m trying, I swear—”

“This doesn’t look much like trying,” she sneered, or maybe she simply said it, and the curl of her lip was Kamoshida’s, come back to haunt him. _Get up. Finish your laps. The rest of them can do it, why can’t you?_

It was obvious why: Yuuki just wasn’t built for it. He wasn’t meant to run thirty laps around the gym after a long practice, he wasn’t meant to understand math, he wasn’t meant to be anything at all except another punching bag, another nobody for everyone to tease.

The chair scraped back. Yuuki wasn’t much taller than his mother, but she still managed to stare him down as she approached. “Let me see your arms, Yuuki.”

“My—huh?”

“Your arms,” she repeated. “Roll up your sleeves. I want to see them.”

“But why?”

“Just do it,” she snapped, and stood there, waiting, staring.

Yuuki glanced from her, to the plates on the table, to his bedroom, right _there_ , barely ten paces away. His head buzzed with a severe need for sleep; his stomach ached with nerves.

_The sooner you get it over with—_

Yuuki rolled his sleeves up. They bunched at his elbows, and his mother grabbed an arm and pushed it the rest of the way up, turning one arm over in her pricking grip. She poked and prodded; he already knew what she was seeing: the scattered bruises from receiving drills; the nicks and scrapes from falling to the court, red and brown and scabbed. His arms were more green and blue and purple than they were skin.

They hadn’t looked like this back in middle school, not even in that last year when he’d joined the team, when he’d been desperate to prove that he wasn’t a nobody after all, when he’d been just another kid fumbling his way through the sport.

“So,” his mother asked, “what is this, Yuuki?”

“They’re from practice,” he said.

“Practice.”

“Yeah,” he said, and swallowed past a mouth gone dry. “Every—everyone has them. Because we work hard.”

She dug her hand into the joint of his elbow, fingers pinching painfully at a barely-healed bruise. His dad appeared in the hall next to his bedroom, woken by the noise—or maybe Yuuki had just noticed him there, at last. Maybe he’d been there all along, watching. Waiting.

Judging.

“Please let go,” Yuuki asked as his mother’s grip grew even tighter. “It hurts. Mom, it—it hurts.”

“I would expect it does,” she said, with barely controlled rage. “As it should, Yuuki. After everything we’ve done for you, this is what you go and do to yourself?”

What the hell did that mean? She thought he did this to himself? How? “I didn’t do this. I was at practice, everybody on the team—”

“Does everyone on the team arrive home as late as you have?” she snarled. “Are their grades as bad as yours? Do they sit on the bench, game after game, despite practicing until it’s nearly morning? Do they, Yuuki?”

His dad, still standing there, blinking blearily as she screeched. Yuuki’s bedroom right behind him, the door still partly ajar from that morning, when he’d rushed out to avoid missing his train for morning practice.

Morning practice. More laps around the gym, more bruises before he’d fully woken. More struggling to get through the day without sleeping through half his classes.

“Answer me, Yuuki.”

“I don’t—I guess not,” he said, knowing it was flimsy, that if she let him go at this point he’d crash to the floor and not have the strength to get back up. “I—um—I just—”

“Hiyoko,” his dad said, from the hall.

“Don’t,” she told him. “Don’t. Don’t you _dare_. Look at him, Hiro. Look at his grades, look at his arms—don’t sit there and tell me there isn’t a good reason for it.”

A good reason? Was having a tyrant as a coach a good reason? Was having balls spiked at his back as he crawled around the gym a good reason? Was being so fucking tired he almost fell asleep on the train a good reason?

Yuuki wanted to laugh. What came out of his mouth was a whimper as his mom dug her nails into another bruise.

All the bruise cream and bananas in the world couldn’t help him now.

His dad rubbed at his forehead and said, “That doesn’t mean it’s drugs, Hiyoko.”

“What else could it be?!”

“High school is tough even without all of this nonsense going on,” Hirotaka said, with an edge that promised anger if the subject wasn’t dropped right that second. “What money could he be using to buy drugs anyway, dear? We don’t give him that much. And if he was working a job instead of going to practice, he’d lie and say he was on the lineup. He’d want us to be proud so we wouldn’t think anything was going on. We’ve talked about this.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s true,” was his mom’s answer.

“No, it doesn’t,” his dad agreed. “But that also doesn’t mean it’s _not_ true. Dear, it’s late. We should all be in bed. We can talk this all out tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she snarled, thrusting Yuuki’s arm away; he stumbled back, tripped over his bag, and fell against the low table sitting in front of the couch. Instead of hurting, his back just went numb.

That was… probably bad. It was good that it didn’t hurt, but… it was probably bad.

“And tomorrow we’re going to be working,” she said, ignoring Yuuki on the floor. “And he’s going to be at school, or at _practice_ , until it’s far too late to be out, _again_. Don’t tell me this can wait; it can’t.”

His dad sighed. His mom stormed up to him, hissing words Yuuki couldn’t hear as he crawled behind the couch and made himself small.

Just once he’d wanted to go home to an empty apartment. Just once he’d wanted to be worth something to… anyone, even if it did manifest as an unhealthy obsession with some idol or another who’d never know his name. Instead he was still the same: boring Yuuki; nobody Yuuki; good for nothing except hitting—

(And he couldn’t even do that right. He’d caused his teammates trouble, in the end. He’d sat around while they cleaned up the mess, feeling sorry for himself, feeling guilty that he could barely move a muscle.)

—and ordering around. God, he was pathetic. Kamoshida would throw him under a bus the moment it got out that the transfer student’s record was leaked. He wasn’t safe from anyone’s wrath.

“Yuuki,” his dad said, leaning over the couch. “Come on out, now.”

“I’m not doing drugs,” Yuuki defended, and curled up tighter. Where had his mom gone? Was she still there, waiting for him to reappear, or was she in bed, where she should have been?

“I know. I know you—”

“You just said you didn’t! You don’t know! You don’t—you don’t know anything!”

A sigh. The creak of the springs in the couch as his dad sat down; rain pattered the window. He hoped it didn’t pick up; in a handful of hours Yuuki would have to head back to school, and the last thing he wanted was to wind up with wet socks.

“I know I don’t,” his dad said. Yuuki wished he would shut up and go back to bed, so Yuuki could go to bed, too. He wished he’d shut up just because the noise grated on his ears. His arms stung. “But it’s—your mother’s just worried, Yuuki. There’ve been all kinds of rumors flying around, all sorts of shady and unsavory business being uncovered. If anyone was bothering you—”

(“You think we haven’t tried?” one of the senior team members said, as Yuuki stared at the new bruises in his arm. Barely a week into practice at his new school and he’d already forgotten what it was like to have unmarred skin. At least his middle school bullies had never caused bruises.

“But,” said one of the newer students, some kid named Tsuki—Tsukimoto? Tsukiyama? He couldn’t remember. “This isn’t normal. Senpai, your arm—”

“If we want to be the best in the nation, this is the least we have to put up with,” grit another senior, one arm in a sling. He’d dislocated his elbow during practice. Yuuki could still hear the pop of it sliding out of place.

“Everyone agrees,” spat the first senior. His tone turned mocking: “‘It’s just what you have to deal with to be the best! It’s just par for the course! Are you sure it’s as bad as you think it is?’” He scoffed.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Takaoka, a second-year with a dark bruise on his cheek barely covered by a large square of bandage. When he grinned, the tape crinkled. “Really, it’s not so bad once you’ve been at it for a while. He’s an Olympic athlete—”

“Are _we_ Olympic athletes?” another first-year asked, sharply. Komaki, probably. He was always too loud, too vocal. “Are we training to be in the Olympics or are we training to go to Nationals? Because I don’t think either one of those has anything to do with—”

The first senior slammed his hand on a locker. “It’s _practice_ ,” he snarled. “It’s _sports_. Like it or not, you’re going to get hurt. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

And Yuuki, like everyone else, kept their mouths shut and stayed.)

“—you know I said I’d listen. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do to help, but—”

“Just stop it,” Yuuki said. “Shut up. Go away. I’m not doing drugs, I’m going to practice. I’m going to school. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be. What am I supposed to do when it’s not enough? What can somebody like me possibly do?”

His dad sighed again. It was nothing, and that was all the answer Yuuki needed.

* * *

Not that Sakamoto and the transfer student understood that.

If Yuuki had known what was going to happen, he would have stayed home. He would have laid around in bed, ignoring his parent’s knocks, until they gave up and left. He would have taken the train to the next stop or the one after and sat around in a public restroom for most of the day.

Anything but go to school. Anything but watch Suzui crumple into a heap in the courtyard. Anything but have to deal with Sakamoto and the transfer student.

“Look, if you know anything—” Sakamoto was saying, but Yuuki had latched onto the look on the transfer student’s face. If Sakamoto burned bright and hot, the transfer student smoldered like an ember, dark but red-hot at his core. It wasn’t the kind of anger that snuffed out easily.

_I’m so dead,_ Yuuki thought.

“I don’t,” he said, wishing there was anyone else around to see them corner him by a bank of lockers. If anyone did, they were ignoring them. That was what Yuuki would do. “I don’t know—what happened, or—or anything. I just gave her a message, that’s all. Kamoshida was always calling people to his office, or the gym, or—”

“Kamoshida,” Sakamoto grit, and made to turn and fly down the hall. He stopped at a hand on his arm; the transfer student.

“You’re sure it was Kamoshida, Yuuki?” the transfer student asked, voice gentle, almost calm.

It made Yuuki shiver. It was too much like his mom’s; forget an ember, the guy was the calm eye of a hurricane.

“Dude, who else could it have been?” Sakamoto cut in, snatching his arm back. “After everything we saw, you think it can’t be him?”

“I’m just trying to be sure.”

Yuuki thought of the teammates that stayed behind: Takaoka, all the time, because he was the captain and felt responsible for his team; Suzui, sometimes, when Takamaki wasn’t available and she didn’t want to walk home alone. Aizawa and Komaki, before they’d gotten kicked off the team. Shirayuri and Miyauchi, who didn’t trust the boys not to get into trouble late at night.

They would have stayed. They would have waited for her, and walked her to the station, and made sure she got off at her stop and home all right. Takaoka had been ready to walk Yuuki right up to his front door last time; the girls would have made sure she got home safely.

But they couldn’t protect her from Kamoshida.

“I’m sure,” Yuuki said.

This time, when Sakamoto went to speed off, the transfer student let him go. Instead of following, he said, “He’s hurt you, too. He’s hurt everyone he can. Hasn’t he?”

Yuuki only nodded. He gripped his sleeve, knuckles pressing on the bruises underneath. He focused on one of the lockers, with a thick piece of rust chewed out of it, rather than on the transfer student. All the concern and anger and righteous indignation in the world wouldn’t save Suzui now.

If only he’d been braver. If only he’d stood up for himself for once in his life. If only he’d told Kamoshida no…

But what would have happened if he did?

“You shouldn’t,” Yuuki told him, as he turned to walk away. “Whatever you’re going to do, you shouldn’t. You can’t fight him. No one cares what he does—”

“I care what he does,” was the transfer student’s response, and before Yuuki knew it he was out of sight. Yuuki slumped against the lockers, wincing as the handles dug into his back.

He should leave. He should follow his own advice and get out of here, go back to class, pretend that he couldn’t see Suzui falling from the rooftop every time he closed his eyes. He should, but he couldn’t move: he could still hear Sakamoto blaring away about Kamoshida this, Kamoshida that; he could still hear the transfer student, calmly declaring _I care what he does._

How could Sakamoto brave going against Kamoshida twice? How could the transfer student, who had every right to keep his nose out of trouble, who had every reason to toe the line and follow the rules, spoken or unspoken—how could he stand up to Kamoshida?

How could they, when not even his teams could?

How could they, when Yuuki couldn’t?

Without meaning to, he followed after them. The halls were empty, but Sakamoto’s voice only echoed louder, Kamoshida’s low answering rumble so full of contempt Yuuki could feel it in his bones. The transfer student said, “And what about Suzui?”

“Suzui?” Kamoshida laughed as Yuuki slumped into the faculty room. It was as messy as ever; Kamoshida knocked over a pile of papers on the floor as he shifted from foot to foot. “What about her? _I_ certainly didn’t do anything to the little bitch. Just ask Nishima here; I don’t lay a hand on my students. Whatever made her want to jump, it wasn’t anything I did.”

Both Sakamoto and the transfer student turned to face him; Yuuki grasped at his sleeve again and said, “It’s true. He doesn’t. Not at practice, anyway.”

“See? So, now that that’s settled—”

“But what he does do—that’s not teaching,” Yuuki barreled on. “It’s not coaching. I don’t know what you did to Suzui, but—but whatever it was, it wasn’t coaching!”

Suzui worked hard. Suzui was miles better at the game than Yuuki dreamed of ever being; she’d been on the starting lineup since first year. Suzui asked questions about technique, and foreign players, and moves she’d seen in matches on TV. Suzui loved volleyball. Nothing would make her try to leave it.

And Kamoshida would be stupid to try.

“Oh,” said Kamoshida, taking a seat. He scattered papers all around his feet as he spun back to his desk. “Is that so?” He sighed, shaking his head, and Yuuki’s stomach dropped. “I do hate to do this, but… at the next board meeting, I’ll have to report you all. Ganging up on a teacher like this—that’s not behavior we welcome in our students. Neither is leaking private records, right, Nishima?”

Private records? Did he mean— “But, you—you told me to,” Yuuki defended, though it was weak. Sniveling. Cowardly.

Kamoshida waved it off. “Did I? I don’t remember saying anything of the sort. And even if I did, how can you prove it? It’s my word against yours, after all.”

And Kamoshida had the gold medal, the trophies, the reputation to weigh down every word until it rang as clearly as the truth.

“Bastard,” grit out Sakamoto, and made another lunge. He was held back, again, by the transfer student, who muttered something in his ear, and while he continued to glare, he nodded. Pulled his hand back slowly, like it was hard not to simply step forward and deck the man that had caused so much trouble. Like it was hard not to commit to it.

Not that Yuuki understood.

They left, the transfer student pulling Yuuki along. He was sure that if he hadn’t, he would have continued to stand there, feet glued to the floor, sure that if he moved Kamoshida would come down on him like an avenging angel.

Or maybe the transfer student would. Maybe he’d take out all of his frustrations on Yuuki that he couldn’t on Kamoshida or the other students.

But he didn’t. They went back to class, though Yuuki was sure no one was paying attention anymore, and then they went home.

Late in the night he realized it: the transfer student had called him by name. He’d called him Yuuki. It had slipped out of his mouth as easily as bumbling excuses did out of Yuuki’s, and Yuuki’s stomach sank again.

_I’m so dead._

* * *

But the days transformed into a week, and the transfer student didn’t do much else to acknowledge Yuuki’s existence except to stop by his desk on his way out the door at the end of the day. He never said anything, and all Yuuki could do was apologize, over and over again, like a broken record.

Yuuki was the reason Suzui had jumped.

Yuuki was the reason his record was leaked.

Yuuki was the reason his team was stuck with extra laps every practice. He was the reason they were late for homeroom; he was the reason they barely caught the last trains home. Not even Takaoka had kind words for him, after everything he’d done. That bone-deep tiredness was reaching farther and farther; the more his classmates whispered, the more he stopped trying to listen, and the more his teammates trudged on, without so much as a glance at him in their midst, the more he stopped trying to see.

For a week straight he went home and choked down food—if there was any—without tasting it. The bath, no matter how hot or cold he ran it, only felt lukewarm. No matter how long he lay in bed, trying to sleep, the more it evaded him.

And Yuuki deserved it.

* * *

The washer whirred. Akira sat back in a chair, too drained to even bother with the bathhouse, and stared at it for a full minute before Morgana padded his way across the lid and settled down.

“You sure you don’t want to try?” he asked, rolling onto his back. “Ooh, it feels so goood—”

“I’m sure,” Akira told him, swatting at the paws kneading the air. Then he tugged his phone out and dialed. He’d been telling himself he’d do this every night since he’d arrived in Tokyo, but one thing led to another, then another, and he’d found himself too tired to bother.

_Now or never_ , he thought, as the phone rang and rang. Tomorrow he and the Phantom Thieves would steal Kamoshida’s heart and make him change his ways or they would die trying.

(Or kill him. That was still on the table.)

And he really wanted to hear a friendly voice right about now. Not Mr. Sakura’s gruff bark, or his classmate’s whispers, or Ryuji’s boisterous laugh. Yuuki— _Mishima_ —hadn’t spoken a word to him except to apologize, sounding as if the world was ending and he could hardly believe it.

“Hello?” his mother said. “Ren? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Hey, Mom.”

Morgana flicked an ear and rolled away from him, pretending not to listen.

“Oh, Ren, it’s been so long! When we didn’t hear from you—”

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. Things came up, and then whenever I had time to call it was late, and—”

He broke off at her laugh. “Well, it sounds like you’re enjoying yourself, then.”

Enjoying himself. Expulsion was looming over his head like the blade of a guillotine—he tried, very hard, not to think of Caroline’s gleeful smile whenever he asked to fuse Personas—and he was fighting life-or-death battles inside a world made up of one man’s twisted desires, and probably half the goddamn school wanted to die…

“Yeah,” he said. “I made a friend. Say hello, Morgana.”

He shoved the phone in the cat’s face. “Hello,” Morgana said, rolling over and pretending he wasn’t enjoying a washing machine massage. Akira supposed cats did lots of pretending. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Rest assured, I’ll be taking good care of your son for the upcoming year.”

His mom laughed again. “Oh, my! He’s certainly a chatty little thing. I didn’t know Mr. Sakura had a pet cat.”

“Um, he doesn’t. I took him in off the streets. I think Mr. Sakura likes him, though.”

If the plates of grated chicken and tuna were anything to go by, at least. Maybe the cafe owner just had a soft spot for cats or small animals. Akira was still on his own for dinner, and he hated the dryness of the convenience store bentos. The bread wasn’t much better.

He told himself it was because there wasn’t any love in it. He wasn’t sure if that was true or not.

“And how is Mr. Sakura? Are you helping him out?”

“I’ve just been staying out of the way and trying to get used to… everything. There’s so much here, it’s so easy to get lost…” Even without the added confusion of accidentally activating apps that sent him into some weird mind-world. He shivered, and rubbed at his arm, grateful for the brief heat.

“Just give it time, dear,” his mom said. She paused. “It’s getting late. Shouldn’t you be in bed by now, young man?”

“Probably.” But the washer kept going, the ancient timer on the top ticking down the minutes. It was supposed to be the quickest cycle; he’d barely spent ten minutes on the phone. “Shouldn’t you be in bed, too? Don’t tell me you’re staying up late with work.”

“Life’s a bit different when you’re an adult, Ren. Things like sleeping and goofing off… You should do them while you can, when you’re young.”

“You didn’t?”

A longer pause. His parents as teenagers… that was something he’d never imagined before. He couldn’t see them staying up late studying and consequently sleeping in. He couldn’t see them goofing off the way he and Ryuji and Ann were, when they weren’t busy with Palace infiltration.

A pair of older men came out of the bathhouse; one of them glanced into the laundromat, then scowled and looked away. Their cheeks were still pink with heat, their arms loaded down with toiletries and laundry bags. Akira wondered where they would go next—home? A bar? Down the street to simply soak in the night air and chat?

“I did,” his mother said at last. “Goodness, I nearly forgot all about it. Sleeping in until noon… Late night study groups with my friends… Have you been making any other friends, Ren? Aside from your feline one?”

“A few. I think you’d like them. When I come home, I’d like you to meet them.”

“I’d like that too, dear,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice. “Now, you should really be getting to bed. Don’t you have school in the morning?”

If they didn’t change Kamoshida’s heart, he wouldn’t have to worry about school for the rest of the year. He’d go straight to juvie, right back to living in a cell, his every action dictated and recorded.

Never again.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just wanted to catch up a bit, that’s all. Good night.”

He barely heard her say it back; the phone hung limp in his hand, the washer still whirring away, as he leaned back on his stool and sighed.

“We can do this, can’t we, Morgana?”

“We have to.” The cat rolled over, blinking one too-blue eye at him. His tail smacked the washer. “We’ve sent the calling card. Everything is ready. It’s now or never.”

“Now or never,” Akira repeated, as an old cobweb thick with dust swayed out of the corner of his eye. Kamoshida had been left to his own devices for too long, and if they could change his mind about the board meeting and the expulsions…

If only he had access to the Metaverse way back when. If only he could traverse it as easily as he was doing now. If only the human mind was so easily manipulated.

He’d had proof that it wasn’t Before. Men and women had died seeking to right the wrongs of their partner’s minds; Akira himself had cut off thousands of people attempting to help him simply because they’d said something he didn’t like. He had almost failed to return home at all.

The washer whirred down to a stop; Morgana got up, stretched over to the adjacent washer, and lay back down, tail beating a drum against it. “We won’t fail,” he said.

Akira tossed his uniform in the dryer. The mud caked on the hem of his pants had come off, at least. “We won’t fail,” he agreed.

For Ann and Suzui. For Ryuji and Mishima. For the volleyball teams. For any future hopefuls. For Akira himself.

“We can’t fail.”


	3. The Moon, Rank 1

The door creaked open. Yuuki, halfway through his fifth check of the text, barely heard it.

“Yuuki,” his dad said. “It’s late. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I have to get this done.”

Although he wasn’t sure how far from completion he was, he knew he had to be close. Who cared if he had school in the morning? Who cared if he spent the last three days holed up in his room, bent over a basic coding website on his phone while glaring at the site slowly taking shape on his laptop?

_I care what he does._

_But no one cares what_ I _do,_ Yuuki thought, even as his dad paced over to the desk. He stank of cigarette smoke and exhaust. He was still wearing his suit for work, and he set down a takeout container right on top of Yuuki’s phone.

“At least eat, then,” his dad said, only retreating as far as the bed. “Take a break. Get up, move around a little. It’ll get the blood flowing a bit, help you think better.”

Yuuki’s stomach felt ready to devour itself, but he found he couldn’t do much more than stare at the food. It smelled good—it smelled heavenly after three days of scrounging for snacks in the kitchen because he didn’t even have the time for instant noodles. He thumbed the lip. “Shouldn’t you be doing responsible parent stuff? Telling me to go to bed, or that I’ll ruin my eyesight staring at screens, or—”

“I haven’t been a responsible parent for a long time, Yuuki. Just eat.”

“Okay,” Yuuki said, wondering how far back this was going to push him. He had to get this done tonight if he was going to surprise Amamiya with it tomorrow, and he couldn’t skip with an important team meeting set up after school.

He had a feeling he knew what it was about.

His dad was quiet as he tucked in. Fried rice with extra shrimp, something he used to only get after doing well on important tests. In middle school he’d gotten some for bench-warming while his team won some tournament or another, like he’d done something special just for showing up.

“How long did we make you put up with it? How long did you—”

“Suffer?” Yuuki said, at the same time his dad did. “Since first year. Since the first practice. Everyone—everyone said it would get better, that it would stop hurting so much. That we’d catch up. That everyone else knew what was going on and didn’t care to stop it because it suited them more not to.”

“Your teachers said they didn’t know.”

As if. “How could they not? They worked with him! The other coaches especially should have noticed something was wrong! Why didn’t they do anything?”

“I don’t know,” his dad said. “Maybe they tried and failed, just like you did. Maybe no one would listen.”

 _Not an excuse_ , Yuuki wanted to say, but he’d seen Komaki’s face after a meeting with the principal. Yuuki had never seen him so angry. “Fat piece of lard,” the boy had hissed, promptly dragging Aizawa into the locker room behind him. Aizawa, who’d gotten reamed out last practice until he was in tears over twisting his ankle during a block. Aizawa, who was still better at the game than Yuuki could ever be.

They hadn’t been on the team long after that.

So… “Maybe,” Yuuki acquiesced, moving the rice around as he dug for shrimp. When was the last time he’d eaten meat? When was the last time he’d eaten takeout?

When was the last time he’d tasted it: salt and butter and soy sauce in some ungodly, unhealthy combination? When was the last time he’d tasted anything?

His eyes burned; he wiped at them with his sleeve. “What’s your point?”

“Why did it take a bunch of vigilantes to do what us adults should have done?”

Yuuki turned to him then, but Hirotaka wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the calling card Yuuki had taped on his wall, a red and black blob in the dark of his room.

_I care what he does._

Yuuki swallowed, stomach suddenly heavy. “Guess they cared more.”

“It’s not just that,” Hirotaka said. “They saw what was going on and instead of making excuses, they acted. Whatever they did, it worked. They helped you when you needed it, without needing to be asked, and without asking for anything in return.”

“Maybe they had a stake in it, too.”

Takamaki would have wanted revenge for Suzui. Sakamoto was still angry over the track team debacle and his broken leg. Amamiya hadn’t wanted to get expelled.

Yuuki hadn’t either, but he’d sat there, like a lump, like the bench-warmer he was, bemoaning his fate without bothering to try and change it. Without bothering to fight it. Without bothering to do anything at all.

(Thinking: _Maybe if I’m good Kamoshida will change his mind._

Thinking: _Maybe if I pretend I don’t actually exist everyone will forget I do._

Thinking: _All that work and worry was for nothing, in the end._ )

“Even so,” Hirotaka said. “They’ve done more than we did. They’ve done more than anyone has.”

“Yeah,” Yuuki said. Then, “I’m sorry about before. When I yelled at you.”

“You had every right to be upset, Yuuki. I didn’t do anything to stop her.” He paused. “I’m sorry for that. Just like I’m sorry I couldn’t be more responsible. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to talk to me after all that.”

“There wasn’t anything you could do. He was careful. Everything he did could be written off as accidents in practice.” This time Yuuki paused. It really wasn’t his dad’s fault he’d been so out of the loop—Yuuki had kept him out of it, thinking he’d never understand, thinking that he’d be like the rest and brush him off. Life was hard. Life trying to become the best high school volleyball team in the nation was even harder.

He shoveled in more rice. Life was always going to be hard. Life where he shoved down how beaten down he was, how tired he was, how ready he was to throw in the towel—

That was no life at all.

“Listen, Yuuki,” his dad said. “If—if there’s anything you need, anything at all, all you have to do is say so. I’ll do everything I can to give it to you, no matter what it is.”

“I can’t ask you to be a better dad, can I.”

“If that’s what you want. I can’t guarantee I’ll be the best, but I’ll do my best to be better.”

Yuuki looked at him again. In the dim light of his laptop’s glow, his dad seemed to have aged ten years. All the news coverage of the scandal, the incident with Yuuki’s mother—they weighed just as heavily on him as they did on Yuuki. Maybe more, since he was supposed to be one of the ones who could stop it all. He was an adult. Someone important would have to listen to him.

Then Yuuki looked at his laptop, at the half-finished site. There were other people like him out there, searching for some way to speak out and someone to listen, and Yuuki was tired of sitting around, doing nothing. The Phantom Thieves gave him freedom, gave everyone on the team their lives back. No one at Shujin would ever have to live in fear of Kamoshida’s wrath ever again.

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s what I want.”

“As long as you’re sure,” his dad said, agreeing far too easily. Part of Yuuki was glad they wouldn’t have to keep talking about this; the other part was annoyed he didn’t push for something else, like the truth.

Because he was right: it was a little too late for him to start acting like a responsible parent.

“I’m sure.” Yuuki shoved another spoonful in his mouth. This was probably the most he’d eaten in weeks. His stomach was going to hate him. “And at least now Mom can’t tell me I’m on drugs anymore. No more practice, no more bruises. Right?”

“Right. But you know why she said that, Yuuki—”

“Because she was worried. I know.”

Although it still didn’t feel that way. It felt more like she was trying to protect her reputation than him. She hadn’t questioned what was going on at practice that he could come home covered in bruises every day; she hadn’t even been able to put two and two together about his grades.

What was he supposed to think about that?

His laptop screen went dark. Hirotaka got up and flicked on the lights, and Yuuki’s eyes burned at the brightness; he squeezed them shut, hoping the burn would fade before he inevitably fell asleep, but turned at his dad’s gasp.

“What?”

“They’re so much worse than I thought,” his dad explained, sitting back down on the bed. One hand hovered between them. “I couldn’t see them all that well, before. I didn’t think…”

Yuuki shrugged, shoving down the urge to cover his arms. In his t-shirt every last one of them was on display, but they were fading from purple and blue and black to purple and green and yellow. In another week or two they’d be gone, like none of it ever happened.

As if he’d ever be able to forget.

“Are there more?”

Yuuki shrugged again.

“Yuuki. Are there?”

“Yeah,” Yuuki said, just so he wouldn’t keep asking. “There are. But they’re not a big deal, they’ll all go away sooner or later—”

“Don’t tell me it’s not a big deal.” Hirotaka paused, took a deep breath, and when he spoke next it wasn’t so sharp and angry. “You’re my son, and someone’s hurt you, and I didn’t even know about it. How can I think that it’s not a big deal? Do the police know?”

“I told them, yeah,” Yuuki said, remembering the awkward questioning, the detectives trying for a soothing, responsible adult atmosphere and failing at it in their sharp suits. One of them had stared and stared at him while his partner took down notes of everything Yuuki told him: the private lessons, the grueling practices. It hadn’t taken nearly as long as he thought it would; only a handful of hours as opposed to the whole book he thought he could write about it.

Maybe the difference was that they didn’t care how he felt about it. They wanted concise information, all the facts boiled down to their essences. A court wouldn’t care how he felt.

“Like I told them, he never hit us himself,” Yuuki said, unsure why. Maybe his dad would understand. “Probably because he knew he’d get in trouble if he did. So he’d just… have the balls do it instead. He’d make us do blocking drills for hours, or receives until we couldn’t feel our hands anymore, and he’d sit there and spike balls at us the whole time. He always said if we wanted to be the best, we had to learn how to take it.”

They’d gotten really good at defending, though the few people who showed real aptitude for spiking got even worse treatment; during one afternoon, Takaoka’s legs had given out on him completely. Yuuki had dragged him off the court to recuperate, and by the end of practice he’d gone through a whole box of tissues to stop up his bloody nose.

His dad sighed.

“It’s bad, I know.”

That prompted another sigh.

“But he can’t hurt anyone anymore. Isn’t that good? Isn’t that what we should be focusing on? That he can’t hurt anybody anymore?”

“I suppose so,” his dad said, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Yuuki didn’t quite like it, either. Kamoshida should have been stopped long before now. He should never have been allowed that kind of power in the first place. None of them should have had to go through that hell.

That was the problem with adults: they allowed whatever made them look the best, no matter how it was achieved, no matter who they had to throw under the bus to make it happen.

Yuuki should have been elated that it was finally happening to someone else. Instead he was tired.

So fucking tired.

And his stomach was complaining, finally, so he closed up the fried rice and shoved it away. “I should get back to it,” he said, hoping his dad got the hint: _I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to talk about this ever again. I want to pretend it didn’t happen to me—that it’ll all fade away like these bruises will._

“Alright,” his dad said, hands twitching for the container. Yuuki let him take it. “I’ll just—put this in the fridge, so you can finish it later. I’ll get you some water, too. All these bottles are empty.”

It was hard, trying to pick up where he’d left off. Had he been working out the font or the text boxes, or had he finished with those and was trying to add the stupid visitor counter? What was the point of one, aside to stroke his own ego? “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”

In the screen, his dad’s hand came up to hover over his head. Yuuki expected the hair ruffle—but didn’t get it. Hirotaka gathered up a few scattered bottles and told him goodnight and then left, not bothering to turn the lights off.

Typing in the dark hadn’t really gotten him anywhere before, but Yuuki took it as an act of senility—his dad was getting old, after all, and he was coming back with full water bottles. He tried not to think it was the kind of considerate gesture he would have wanted before.

It was stupid, the idea that abuse was bringing them together again—so Yuuki shoved that down, too, and got back to work.

* * *

Akira glanced one more time at his phone. Goro, turning down another invitation to meet up and talk and, Akira hoped, help him parse the identity of Yuuki.

There was a Yuuki in his class, and several Yukis in his grade, and nearly a dozen more students with surnames beginning with Yuki. It could have been an abbreviation, or a nickname.

But he could already see Goro’s exasperation. “You want to go on a ghost hunt, Ionasal?” he would tease, before firing off every reason why a manhunt like this was a bad idea.

Akira knew it was a bad idea. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to try.

“Um, Amamiya?”

Akira glanced away from his phone, ready to be polite but standoffish—over the past few hours, just about everyone in class had had something to say to him, whether it was about the rumor spreading or about Kamoshida’s arrest—but paused. Mishima shifted on his feet, hands stuffed into his pockets, staring at the floor. There were deep, dark bruises under his eyes, and he’d spent half his classes asleep in his seat.

“Yes?” Akira asked, wondering if this was going to be another apology, but Mishima glanced around.

His voice dropped low. “You’re a Phantom Thief, aren’t you?”

Akira tucked his phone away, shoving his hands in his pockets, too, to keep them from shaking noticeably. He caught sight of blond hair at the door—Ann and Ryuji, who definitely didn’t need to be seen with him right now. Ann was keeping Ryuji from barging in the door by engaging in very fake, very stilted chitchat. “What makes you say so?”

Mishima shrugged, as if the answer was obvious or it was just intuition, but rambled on: “I won’t tell anybody. I swear I won’t. It’s, um, the least I can do after—after what I did before. But, well, even if you’re not a Phantom Thief, I wanted to share this with you.”

He tugged his phone out and messed with it. When he flipped it around, the screen was a bright, garish red. Akira only had enough time to catch things like **post your troubles** and **P** **hantom** **A** **ficionado** before Mishima tugged it out of sight again. “After what happened with Kamoshida, I wanted to make a place where people could come and share what’s bothering them. If the Phantom Thieves could help them, too, it’d spread the word around, you know? ‘Cause there’s people out there who don’t believe the Phantom Thieves had anything to do with Kamoshida turning himself in, and—”

He stopped, swaying on his feet. “Mishima,” Akira said, half ready to catch him if he toppled over right then and there.

Mishima finally glanced up from the floor. He was tired, sure enough, but there was something bright and blazing in his eyes despite that. Akira froze, and swore his heart skipped a beat. “I want everyone to know how great the Phantom Thieves are,” he said. “I want—I want everyone to believe in them as strongly as I do. They saved—so many people. People like Suzui. People like me. So I thought if they could help more people in trouble like we were, maybe more people would believe, too. That’s all I want.”

He stopped again, stared for a few moments, then added, “Um. That’s all. You don’t—you don’t have to check it out, but I wanted to make sure you knew about it. In case you are a Phantom Thief, and it does help.”

“Right,” Akira said. Mishima turned to leave; Akira’s heart leaped into his throat.

If he didn’t say anything now, he never would. Mishima could very well be his Yuuki, and Akira would have blown his chances without even trying. “Wait,” he said, and Mishima froze. “About the other day, when I called you Yuuki, Mishima—I didn’t mean to. If it bothered you, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He stayed frozen for a long moment, processing—long enough that Morgana poked his head out of Akira’s desk to watch, and long enough for Ann’s titter of fake laughter to fade out—but eventually said, “It’s fine. You can call me whatever. I don’t mind.”

He ran from the classroom. Akira watched him go, Morgana’s thumping tail hitting him in the arm. “It didn’t sound like he didn’t mind,” the cat commented.

“Yeah.” Akira sighed. He could feel himself frowning, and scrubbed at his face. “Maybe he thinks I won’t forgive him, otherwise.”

“But you already said it was fine, dude,” Ryuji said, making his way over.

Ann wasn’t far behind. She settled into her seat, tossing one leg over the other. “The guilt never really goes away, though. But who knows? Maybe he liked it.”

“Doubt it.”

Ann swatted at Ryuji’s arm with her foot. He caught it, then pinned it under his arm; she whined about his gross boy sweat getting all over her good shoes, and Akira laughed, though worry had settled in somewhere: Mishima didn’t seem to have very many friends. He spent his lunch breaks gulping down food and then napping. No one ever seemed to want to talk to him. Akira thought it was because he was a member of the volleyball team, but he couldn’t say so for sure.

His Yuuki had been lonely, too. That was why he’d spent so much time with Akira—he didn’t have anyone else to talk to, and no one was ever happy to see him, so he’d attached to the one person who did. At the time, Akira had wondered if he was taking advantage of the lonely boy on the other side of the screen. It had felt like it.

Akira was still grateful, even if it was mixed with guilt.

“Well, _I_ think he liked it,” Ann said, tugging her foot out of Ryuji’s hold at last. “Who wouldn’t?”

“Agh, who cares?” Ryuji asked. “What’d he show ya, anyway? Some kinda website?”

“Yeah,” Akira said, then glanced at the door, half-expecting Mishima—Yuuki—to come running back in for his bag, left at his desk. “He said he wanted to help the Phantom Thieves.”

Morgana peered out from the desk as Akira showed them the site; there were dozens of posts already, most of them filled with general disbelief that things like phantom thieves existed in the first place, but there were also posts about terrible jobs and awful bosses and strict teachers.

Ryuji, hooked on his shoulder, grinned. “Dude,” he said, “all these people got problems? You think one of them could be our—”

“Quiet,” Morgana hissed. “We’re still at school. Do you _want_ people to find out? Do you _want_ to go to jail?”

“Well, no, but…”

“It’s just people venting, anyway,” Ann said, tapping at her own phone. “‘I wish I got paid more for the work I do,’ and ‘My boss sits around in his office all day even when we’re swamped,’ and ‘I failed an important test because my teacher wouldn’t let me in the classroom even though my train was late.’ Stuff like that. Can we—uh, the Phantom Thieves—even do anything about that?”

“Lady Ann,” Morgana mourned, “you’re just as bad as he is.”

“That really is what it sounds like, though,” Akira said. “Some of these things are too complicated to fix—the Phantom Thieves can’t raise wages. Who would they have to target for that?”

“Dude, who cares?” Ryuji snatched his phone away, scrolling wildly. Then he gaped at it. “This thing’s only been up ten hours? Don’t it take, like, weeks to make a website?”

“Probably?” Ann asked.

“Why don’t you make one and find out?” Morgana goaded.

Ryuji only glowered. “Least I could make a website if I wanted, dumb cat.”

“Not here, please,” Akira said. He dug out space in his schoolbag for Morgana, who slunk in, his bright blue eyes narrowed with displeasure. Akira allowed himself a single pass of his hand over fur as he reached for the zipper and shut it.

Morgana grumbled something unintelligible. Akira slung the bag on his shoulder, now with five extra pounds of cat.

(Morgana could say what he liked, but the squirming, wriggling ball of fur in his bag said otherwise.)

“It could be useful, though,” Morgana murmured through the opening. “If we can get a name, I’ll show you that there are other ways to fight the twisted desires of mankind aside from stealing Treasures out of Palaces.”

“The hell does that mean?” Ryuji grumbled. “We doin’ anything today or not?”

“You could show me around Central Street. I still don’t know much about it,” Akira said. He was still sore from fighting Shadow Kamoshida; where did Ryuji get all this energy from?

“Oh, and we can get crepes, too!” Ann chimed in.

Ryuji groaned. Morgana said his usual bit of sucking up to whatever Ann wanted—Akira was going to have to kick that habit out of him—and Akira said, “Crepes sound fine. Who’s treating me? Ryuji?”

Ryuji squawked, “Hell no!”

Ann rolled her eyes, grabbed up her bag, and followed them out the door. “I’ll do it, then. But I’m not paying for Ryuji’s. He still owes me money.”

“Don’t hang stuff like that over my head, man! That was years ago!”

“It was in middle school, not years ago!”

Akira almost chuckled to himself. Their banter was so much like his old friends’ that it was nostalgic, almost. He wondered if they’d been friends in middle school, or friends since childhood, and whether they’d grow to love each other, too—but that thought made him feel lonely, so he squashed it down. For now, they were his friends. For now, they were going to show a complete outsider like him around the town they’d grown up in. For now, the parallels hurt, started up an ache in his chest that refused to go away.

He wanted to find the love of his life, too.

* * *

Down in the gym, Yuuki stared at his shoes and tried not to fall asleep. The principal droned on and on about the teams—how it hurt him to disband them, how they could choose to join another or focus on their studies, how they’d be bringing in a professional for anyone to talk to—and Yuuki didn’t care for it.

It was too little too late.

Not that the principal seemed to care. He’d let it go on for years—how could any of them be expected to hear him say he cared and believe it?

And if anyone cared that Yuuki fell asleep halfway through, well, they didn’t bother him about it; he woke to the gym door slamming shut and the harsh whispers that followed.

“What are we going to do?” some of the girls were asking.

“If he’d just done something before—”

“Do you think what happened to Suzui was that bad?”

“She got taken off first string. I saw the lineups—”

“But why?”

Not that there was a real answer to that. Because someone had pissed off Kamoshida, and he wanted everyone to know that no matter how hard you worked or how good you were, your position on the team was at his mercy? Because he was trying to teach Takamaki a lesson?

Because he was just an asshole?

“Who knows,” was the answer. “But at least some of us have time to join other clubs. The third-years…”

Yuuki glanced over at the third-years, huddled off in a corner. Takaoka was grinning, as he usually did, but it fell flat. The third-years, like Suzui, loved volleyball. They’d kept at it at this hellish school for years; it was too late to change tracks to soccer or basketball. The rules they’d learned by heart would be useless there.

“It’ll be okay,” Takaoka was saying, trying to convince his fellow third-years and failing. One girl started crying. “No, it—it _will_ be. We still have options; we can—we can start studying, we can still make it—”

“The only one who believes that is _you_ , Takaoka,” spat one of the girls. She hauled her crying friend out the door, and in ones and twos the rest of them fled, heads pressed together, still whispering. Wondering. Questioning.

Takaoka collapsed to the floor. Yuuki knew that unflinching stare trained on the tape running around the gym floor; he’d done it too often himself, when his whole body ached and felt ready to break into a million pieces.

So he knew the last thing he should be doing was shuffling over, feet too unsteady to really support himself. Takaoka wasn’t a yeller, but neither was Yuuki, and hadn’t he done just that just a week or two ago to his own father?

But he thought, dumbly, that the last thing he would also want was to be abandoned. His dad had sat next to him for close to an hour, before Yuuki was finally ready to go to bed. Takaoka had been the glue keeping the team together, most days. The least Yuuki could do was lend an ear.

Even if he did yell. Even if he said things Yuuki didn’t want to hear, things he knew were true.

“I think you can,” he offered, once he was close enough.

“It won’t be enough,” Takaoka said. His voice wobbled.

“Maybe not, but,” Yuuki said, but stopped. As if Takaoka would want to hear platitudes about his future from a guy who’d been considering jumping off a building only a month ago.

“I appreciate it, Mishima, really,” Takaoka said, though his hands were curled into fists on his lap. “But they’re right. Some of us don’t have options anymore. We spent so long playing volleyball the way Kamoshida wanted us to. We came to practice every day, rain or shine. You know what it’s like.”

Barely sleeping, barely eating—never any time for the homework piled up on his desk. Never any time to do anything other than practice more volleyball. “Yeah.”

“We gave up so much to be here. We gave up—” His breath hitched. If Yuuki looked over, what would he see? Takaoka blinking back tears? “—so, so much. I just wanted to play volleyball. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. How can I start to dream of something new _now_? How—how can I—”

“You can still join a college with a good team, right?”

Takaoka choked on a breath. Yuuki wasn’t sure if it was a sob or the swallowed beginnings of laughter. “You think anyone will take someone from here? After _this_? It’s—it’s over. It really is. There’s nothing we can do to change that. There’s—there’s _nothing_ —”

He broke down. Yuuki squeezed his knees and stared at his shoes and pretended the heart-wrenching sobs were his—they were the cries he never let out, the ones he always wanted to make but never could, ones that wouldn’t go unnoticed. His parents would hear and question and fling worthless, empty encouragement his way, and he hadn’t wanted to deal with it.

Because, after years of putting up with it, after wishing and hoping it would get better or he would finally catch up, it was over.

It was over, and they had nothing to show for it.

All those hours spent at morning practice, when they could have been sleeping or eating a decent breakfast instead of gulping down calorie bars or protein shakes. All those hours spent at practice after school, when they could have been hanging out with friends or trying out jobs or studying. All those hours spent in private lessons—all those times Kamoshida had flung balls across the court hard enough to dislocate fingers and wrists, all those times he sneered down at the boys sprawled out on the floor after laps and laps of flying leaps, all those times the girls complained of his hands lingering a bit too long when correcting their stances, their posture, their position—

Gone.

Wasted.

Flushed down the drain with Kamoshida’s and the school’s reputation.

And all they’d gotten for it was a bunch of hot air spewed out by the principal to make himself feel better.

It made Yuuki want to cry, too, but he found he was too tired to. He laid back, ready to wait out Takaoka’s crying spell—but Takaoka grabbed him by the collar, dragging him upright. There were still tears running down his cheeks, and his eyes were slits he could barely see out of; he brought Yuuki in close enough that his breath hit Yuuki square in the face. “You—” he said, before another sob broke in.

Yuuki waited it out.

“What made you defy him, Mishima?” Takaoka asked at last. His breath was still ragged, and his voice was raspy. “What—what made you think it was worth it? You were going to lose everything if those thieves hadn’t intervened. So, why?”

_I care what he does._

“I guess I got tired of it,” Yuuki said. “Being treated like—like crap all the time. Kamoshida, he wasn’t going to get better. He wasn’t going to start caring about his teams, or about us. He just cared about what he could get out of it. What happened to Suzui—we all know how hard she worked to earn her spot, but he took it from her just because he could, because he was mad enough to and wanted to hurt somebody. That’s not a coach. That’s not something a coach should do. And I—”

Kamoshida’s sneer. Yuuki didn’t have to see it to know it was there. _Did I? And even if I did, how can_ you _prove it?_

“You know, whenever we lost a game, he blamed the team and the players,” Yuuki said. “And whenever we won, it was all because of his expertise, as if he was the one making snap decisions on the court. If it made him look better, he snatched all the glory, but he was always ready to dump blame on everyone else. We were nothing to him except a way to boost his own ego. And I just—I got tired of it.”

Tired of the way he’d slam into someone for one single mistake. Tired of the way he used the team to relive his glory days. Tired of the way he’d used Yuuki, and Yuuki had been too blinded by fear to realize it.

He asked, “Are you disappointed?”

“No,” Takaoka said. “I’m not. I—I saw it, too. I knew he was doing it. And I—I was the captain. I should have—I should have protected you all better. I should have stood in his way more. But I knew if I did, he’d take it away from me. Volleyball, and the team. He’d give me a reason to quit.”

 _Like he’d throw out a talented player like you,_ Yuuki almost said, but it wasn’t true. He’d done exactly that to Suzui, without any rhyme or reason to it.

Then he thought, a reason. Like Sakamoto, who’d been badgered and worked up for weeks before snapping. Yuuki never saw him running in their joint gym classes, and he’d always thought it was his leg acting up, the bone straining under the pressure; then he wondered how such a promising guy could be laid low by someone like Kamoshida.

He found ways. Yuuki knew that; he always found ways.

He must have been silent for too long; Takaoka gradually hung his head, staring at the floorboards between their knees, that familiar green tape scuffed up from hundreds of sneakers. “Mishima,” he said. His grip tightened. “I know it’s going to be mandatory, but—I want you to see that counselor the principal’s bringing in. I’m going to see him, too, and I’m going to convince the others to, as well. I’m not—I’m not going to sit back and watch as he drags us all down with him. Despite everything, I still love volleyball. I still want to play. I’ll find a way to join a college with a good team. So, don’t—”

He choked, then coughed, then took a deep breath. When he looked up, there was a manic glint in his eyes—half determination, half sheer stubbornness, all of it lit with the vibrant fire of youth. Yuuki saw it and wondered how he could still believe he had a future, then wondered if he knew about the rooftop, and the spring storm, and the nagging, clinging thought in the back of his mind that it wouldn’t hurt so much after he’d hit the ground.

“We have options. I know we do,” Takaoka went on. “Whether we believe we do or not, we do. So—so don’t forget what it’s like to be brave, okay? Don’t forget what it’s like to stand up for yourself. Don’t let anyone trample you again.”

 _I wasn’t brave,_ Yuuki wanted to say. He’d been stupid, letting himself get pulled along by Amamiya’s weird charisma, and it had been simple: Amamiya cared, and Kamoshida didn’t, and Yuuki had wanted to know what it was like to follow someone who cared.

It was a lot like following someone who didn’t, except Yuuki felt a bit more daring about bothering him.

“Mishima, please. Swear it.”

“I—” _Can’t. Won’t. I’m not brave enough; it was all on a whim._ A stupid, suicidal whim, because he wanted something other than volleyball to make him feel anything, but Takaoka’s eyes were blazing with a crazed fervor, and Yuuki wanted to get as far away as possible. “Yeah, okay.”

“You swear?”

“Yeah, I—I swear.”

Takaoka’s expression melted into relief. He flung his arms around Yuuki, hugging him tight until the old bruises on his arms started to burn. “Thank God,” he muttered, over and over.

All Yuuki could think was that he knew. Somehow, he knew—about the rooftop, about the storm, about the reassurance that it wouldn’t even last that long, about the rings of the fence digging into his hands and the squeal of the door as it opened and the voice in his ear, begging him not to.

Yuuki’s arms, though, stayed glued to his sides, unable to reciprocate. Before long, it was over.

Yuuki couldn’t help but think it was odd, that Takaoka could give what he wanted all along.

Even if Yuuki didn’t deserve it.

* * *

Goro’s phone lit up. He almost wanted to roll his eyes—Akira again, he was sure. Ever since he remembered their shared past he’d become insistent bordering on harassment on taking the time to catch up. He was in Tokyo for a year’s probation; even if he hadn’t mentioned it a dozen times, Goro had the files squirreled away in his briefcase.

Around him, the station buzzed with activity. Suguru Kamoshida sat in a holding cell on one of the basement floors, apparently bawling his eyes out every chance he could get and apologizing to everyone who so much as walked by.

It was appalling. It also reeked of Akira’s intervention.

What else was Goro supposed to think about it?

He leaned back, scrubbing at his forehead, appearances be damned—here in the station no one looked put-together unless they spent several minutes in the restrooms before going out. No one really cared for his sickly-sweet TV personality either; he’d been called a variety of names since he’d started his internship. It was nothing compared to some of the foster homes he’d lived in, but it meant no one came to his tiny corner cubicle unless they had to.

When they did, it was usually because the director told them to. Goro knew what to do from there.

All that meant was that he was largely left to himself as the upstart high school kid who thought he could be a detective—which also meant there was no one around to hear him groan in frustration as Akira sent yet another text.

 **Fine** , he’d sent, after Goro had ignored him for yet another day. **I’ll just send you pictures of my cat, then.**

And he was: dozens of terrible shots of a black cat with bright blue eyes and white socks filled up Akira’s side of the conversation. The newest one was a blurry mess that seemed to be the cat sitting on top of a workbench, lazily sprawled over several tools and a notebook covered in math homework.

Akira: **Morgana does not understand that I need this finished for tomorrow. Cats simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a high school student.**

There were other captions under most of the others: Morgana enjoying the whipped cream spooned off a crepe; Morgana enjoying the embrace of a ditzy blonde girl as she scratched behind his ears; Morgana hissing at some blond boy, his hair crayon-yellow from a bad dye job. There were dozens of them, and they were quickly filling up his phone.

Goro faced a dilemma: break down and text Akira back, hoping to end the onslaught of cat photos, or buckle down and refuse, hoping that he’d stop on his own. But it was Akira; if anything, Akira would match him a cat photo for every unseen glare.

Goro, faced with the realization that yes, this was the Akira he’d been so eager to be reunited with, questioned his own sanity. How could he have missed this? How could he want this intrusive, overly concerned annoyance with a savior complex to come anywhere near him?

He still remembered the feeling of Akira’s hand in his, at the end. How the image of Mama in their tiny kitchen faded out into nothing but light and Song, and yet Akira had held onto him long after. Akira with his phone numbers disguised as magic spells; Akira with his constant assurances: _I’ll take us home, and I won’t sacrifice anyone to do it._

Sacrifice. Goro’s whole life was a mess of it, and yet there was Akira, trying to reconnect, and Goro didn’t want to. Akira would see the truth; he likely already knew it.

Goro couldn’t face his disappointment, but giving him the cold shoulder now that they finally had the chance to talk? It was a new low, even for Goro.

He sighed. Talking to Akira, even over text, was bound to be a nightmare, but he owed the other boy an explanation—or at least a dressing down.

Goro: **You do realize I’m at work at the moment? Your incessant messages may have interrupted an important briefing, I’ll have you know.**

Akira’s response was near-instant. He was likely bored waiting for his cat to roll over in his sleep, freeing his homework. **Good thing you weren’t, then.**

To think, Goro owed his life to this person.

But Akira wasn’t done. **Do they really keep you that busy? You’ve got a school life, too. Tell me you’re eating, at least.**

To think Goro owed his life to the most annoying emperor Ra Ciela had ever been graced with.

Goro: **I am perfectly capable of handling my own affairs.**

Akira: **That’s not a yes, Mom, I am, thank you for asking.**

Goro: **You’re incorrigible. How did I stand being around you before?**

Akira: **From what I recall, you were very big on getting your ass handed to you by everyone you talked to, and I was the only one who refused to do it until you made me.**

Goro grit his teeth. How long was Akira going to hold that over his head? So Goro had been trapped as a stubborn eight-year-old child for thousands of years; could he really be blamed for that?

But that was largely Goro’s own fault. He’d been a stupid child utterly fixated on his goal—Akira had only ever condoned his methods, not the goal itself. He’d wanted to go home, too.

Akira: **Not that I didn’t understand why. You used the only strategy you had, which was to force the rest of us into submission by any means necessary. I know how hard it is to talk sense into some people. We just happened to find a whole planet full of them, that’s all.**

Goro: **Talkative, aren’t you.**

It was just an observation made to keep Akira from spamming his phone with texts questioning whether he was still there or listening as Goro gathered up his briefcase, jacket, and punched out for the day. It was late, and he wasn’t urgently needed, and no one was going to miss him anyway—

“Akechi,” said Sae Niijima from the break room he passed by. Goro paused in the door, sniffing the freshly made coffee and the cup Niijima was nursing. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. “Heading home for the day?”

“I—yes, that was the plan,” Goro said, as his phone buzzed away in his pocket. Once Akira got going, he could very rarely be stopped. “Unless you need me for something, Miss Niijima?”

Niijima winced. She was just young enough that the honorific was still new, still fresh—that or so many of her colleagues called her little miss, like she was a child.

Goro would certainly hate it.

“No, nothing like that.” Niijma sipped at her coffee. “I was just worried. Working here, and also going to school full time… It must be taxing. I’d prefer it if you didn’t keep such long hours.”

Goro laughed, plastering on a smile. “I’m afraid that’s not up to me. Luckily we’re far past overtime, and as a high school student I’m allowed a little leeway. No one expects me to stick to the unspoken rules, you see.”

Because teenagers were rebellious by nature. And lazy. And incompetent. And a dozen other things that didn’t really apply to Goro, who worked his ass off to get this internship and then got stuck in a corner filing paperwork for eight hours straight, six days a week. Sometimes more.

If he wanted to be a regular salaryman, Goro would never have bothered applying here.

Niijima hummed, just long enough for him to know she heard and agreed but didn’t find it quite so funny. She had a younger sister Goro’s age. No doubt she thought he was better off staying in school, studying until his eyes bled, and then traipsing off to college—but if he did that, he would always be a nobody. An unwanted child. Just another face in the crowd to be forgotten, always passed up for children with parents with deep pockets and deeper connections.

No one here had to know. Or if they did know, they at least knew enough to keep their mouths shut.

“Well, if that’s all, I’ll just be going,” he said. His phone buzzed again.

Akira really couldn’t leave him be for a few minutes, could he.

Niijima said, “Take care,” and went back to her coffee. There was more work no doubt waiting on her desk, but he bit his tongue to avoid asking if she wanted help. Next time perhaps, but not now, not with Akira impatiently waiting for his replies.

“I will, thank you.”

It was always good to be polite; people remembered the rude ones.

His phone kept buzzing as he left the station. The night was chilly, and while he was grateful for his jacket it just barely staved off the cold; he tried to think that soon he would be cursing the summer heat and the torrential storms and the press of humidity, not trying to hide his shivering as he made his way down the nearly empty street.

No one here looked twice at him, too engrossed in their phones or conversations to pay much attention to who they were passing by. Ordinarily it stung—Goro was a glutton for attention and he knew it—but tonight, as he slipped his own phone out of his pocket and dialed a number he still knew by heart, it didn’t.

“Goro!” Akira cried out, foregoing a greeting like any sane person would. “ih=yei-iz iyon-ne myei-du lis-ir! It’s so late; don’t tell me you’re still at the station?”

“Hello to you too,” Goro muttered. “Remind me why I’m doing this, again?”

“You’d have to ask yourself that.”

Except the only reason he could give was that he was tired of the nonstop messages and photos. Akira cared, and he cared more than most people, and apparently when he couldn’t get in Goro’s face about taking care of himself bombardment was the only answer. Goro swallowed down a sigh.

“But I’m glad you decided to call,” Akira went on, “since a certain someone refuses to get off my homework.” There came a ferocious meowing from the other end of the line. “And I told you I need it done tonight. No, I can’t do it on the train. We’re packed in like sardines in there. What am I supposed to do, use some poor man’s back as a desk?”

“Do I want to know?”

“Morgana is very insistent that I go to bed.”

“You mean someone is finally turning your own mothering instincts on you? How terrible,” Goro said, stepping out of the way of a teenager so engrossed in his mobile game that he veered all over the sidewalk. Goro hoped he stepped into traffic—if only to snap him out of whatever trance he was in.

“I don’t mother. I just worry,” was Akira’s equally terrible excuse, but Goro heard him flop down onto a bed, or a couch.

“Because of your Yuuki.”

“No, before that, too,” Akira said. “I’d pack extra onigiri with my lunches in case someone forgot theirs. If the vending machine ate their change, I’d lend them some. One time at practice I hogged the balance beam specifically so a teammate who hurt her ankle wouldn’t push herself and make it worse.”

“And yet you weren’t loved,” Goro said.

“No,” Akira said, voice quiet. “I wasn’t.”

It was that complex of his. He had to be a hero, he had to save everyone. He’d tried to be selfish during the Imperial Trials, but his true nature had won out in the end—and people who had nothing more to lose gathered around him like flies to honey, attracted to the sort of person who’d give his life for their happiness. People here knew better than to go carousing with someone who went off searching for trouble, even if he thought said trouble wasn’t a big deal.

Until it was.

Another loud meow, this time with a hiss tacked on the end. Akira groaned.

“Go to bed, Ionasal.”

“Don’t call me that,” Akira muttered, dark even over the phone. “You know I hate it.”

“I’m aware. That’s why I said it: the sooner you go to bed, the sooner you can escape my dredging up of the past. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Only if you promise to do the same once you’re at home, too.”

Home. No matter how long he’d lived there, that bare apartment would never be home. There was barely enough floor space for the futon he never put away; there was never anything in the fridge. He always forgot to buy groceries; it was easier to wander down the street and pick some convenience sotre or cafe or restaurant at random and duck inside for something quick, and that was when he felt like eating. Then he thought of the pile of homework he’d left untouched for the last three days sitting innocent and forgotten in a corner.

“Goro,” Akira chided. “Promise me.”

They had a relationship built on an equal mixture of lies and truth: there were things Goro would never tell Akira, just as there were things Akira would never tell Goro, and all of it mixed in with the only truth they shared: Ra Ciela, and the god at the center of the universe, and the long, short journey home.

“Of course I will,” Goro lied, even though his eyes were burning. He could go for days on next to no sleep; he could crash once he had a free day all to himself—but no, not anymore. Akira would want his time, his attention—and Akira would give it, too. Goro wouldn’t have to worry over watching what he said for once, as long as the Metaverse didn’t crop up somehow.

Akira hummed with disbelief. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” No, he’d do at least one assignment before he collapsed for the night, and maybe there was something left at the corner store by his apartment that he could eat.

But Akira sighed with relief. “Okay. Good. You’ve got to be well rested to use that brain of yours to the fullest, right?”

“Go to bed, Ionasal.”

“Alright, geez.” More harsh meowing. Akira grunted—Morgana, probably stepping all over his torso, pushing the air right out of his lungs, smothering whatever else Akira was planning to say. “Good night, Goro.”

Goro very nearly skipped a step. He didn’t know why—Ren had always wished him good night after their phone calls, and the voice on the phone wasn’t changed from the handful of months they’d spoken last—but it hit him differently. This was the Akira who’d wished him good night before they entered cold sleep; this was the Akira who’d done his damnedest to be friends with someone like Goro, who thought nothing of slaughtering whole planets just to go home.

Or maybe it was the sliver of a wish as they melded into one at the center of the universe: _I want Goro to go home. I want someone to be there to tell him good night and good morning every day. I want him to find love, too._

“Right,” Goro said, before his composure broke down. An unwanted child like him didn’t deserve love; an unwanted child like him would never find love, no matter how hard he searched. It was going to be hard enough balancing Akira’s friendship on top of everything else. He didn’t need a lover complicating everything further. “I—good night, Akira.”

He hung up on Akira’s chuckle and found he’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

_It’s so good to hear from you!_

_I want him to find love, too._

But it was too late. Goro would likely be dead before the year was out; none of Shido’s many minions would stand to keep him alive once his plan was complete. He knew too much, could ruin too many of their lives; they wouldn’t let themselves go down with Shido’s ship, not if they could help it.

Yes, it was too late. Self destruction was a family trait, after all.

“Good night, Akira,” he said, and hung up. Pulled his jacket a little closer, wondered how long this would last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! Have a safe and happy holiday, everyone!
> 
> ih=yei-iz iyon-ne myei-du lis-ir should roughly translate to "It's good to hear your voice" if I haven't completely messed up the grammar. Or anything else.


	4. The Moon, Rank 2

Yuuki didn’t expect the counselor to amount to much. He was young, handsome, and was probably only here because he was just out of school and couldn’t find a better, decent job.

Then he smacked himself with the microphone onstage mid sentence, and Yuuki found that he didn’t know what to think. Sure he was young, handsome, and had nearly all the girls falling over themselves to rush to his office—but he didn’t seem to have any awareness, otherwise, like he’d poured over so many books his common sense had rotten with disuse.

It was better than Yuuki, who was awkward _and_ stupid.

He waited as everyone filed out. Class was set to begin in the next ten minutes, but no one was trying to herd any of them into any semblance of order, and Yuuki wondered for a moment whether the teachers would have to receive counseling, too. They probably would. How odd would they find it to spill their guts to a younger coworker? Would someone as stern and stubborn as Mr. Ushimaru even go? Would someone as bone-dead tired as Ms. Kawakami always was ever have the time to?

 _Not my problem_ , he decided, finally leaving. Amamiya and his friends were chatting with the new counselor in the middle of the walk, and students swept by them; Yuuki backtracked to the rest area, pretending to mull over the drink selection.

He really didn’t want to catch the counselor’s eye. He’d break in under a minute, humiliate not only himself but his entire family, and prove just how worthless he really was—

The vending machine clunked. Yuuki jumped; somehow, the new counselor was already there, reaching for his drink with one hand as Yuuki stumbled over his feet and crashed into a bench. The old, faded bruises on his back screamed.

Or maybe he did. The new counselor rounded the small table, tripped over his own two feet, and wound up sprawled out beside him, drink still in hand and glasses knocked askew. To Yuuki’s surprise, no one came running. Even more to his surprise, the new counselor started laughing.

“I really am clumsy today, aren’t I?” he said. He didn’t sound much older than Yuuki was, pushing himself to his feet and examining his toes. He started to brush off his coat before remembering the drink, now with a large dent on the side. He stared at it so long that Yuuki couldn’t help but be drawn to it, too, then sat with a sigh. “So much for making a good first impression, right?”

He was wearing sandals and April was barely over, Yuuki wanted to point out, but clamped his mouth shut and nodded.

“You’re… Mishima, right? You were on the volleyball team.”

Another nod. If he opened his mouth he would vomit words like a faucet.

Be brave? Yeah, right.

“You were one of the students Mr. Kamoshida was trying to have expelled, isn’t that right?”

Another nod. Or, maybe if he did try to talk, his voice would find itself stuck in his throat, unable to speak a single complaint. There were a lot of things he could say about his expulsion, just as there were a lot of things to say about the volleyball team and Kamoshida, and not enough words to say them in.

“Oh, good,” the counselor said. “With the way my luck’s been today, I was afraid I might be mistaken. You should know that the volleyball team and the students threatened with expulsion have been given—ah, priority, over the rest of the student body. The school is concerned for your mental well-being.”

Mental well-being? Is that what they were going to call it, after half the team had their futures snatched from them in a single instant? Is that what they were going to call it, when Suzui had jumped from the roof? He could still see the impression her body had made on the flowerbed, a month later. He doubted he would ever stop seeing it.

“More like covering their asses,” he muttered, because it should never have gotten this far. None of it should have happened. If the school had been more responsible, Suzui never would have jumped, the teams wouldn’t have been disbanded, Amamiya wouldn’t be known far and wide as the guy who carried knives in his bag.

 _Concern._ If this was the school’s concern, it made him sick.

“Yes, that’s true, too,” the counselor said. “Sakamoto said nearly the same thing, I believe. You do have the right to angry about this.”

“And you want me to talk to you.”

He beamed; Yuuki looked away, annoyed at the brilliance of it, nerves running a live wire up and down his spine. The courtyard was eerily empty, though he thought he heard Mr. Ushimaru hollering from one of the classrooms. The man had a pack of lungs to rival a drill sergeant.

“Yes!” the counselor was saying, as Yuuki wished for the table to disappear so he could make a break for it. “As I just said, the school is giving certain students priority over the others and—ah, unfortunately, Mishima, you fit both. When I saw you over here, I thought—sooner’s better than later, isn’t it?”

No one in class would think twice if he went missing for an hour or two. He was Yuuki the loser, the punching bag, the scapegoat. If anything was worth doing, it was worth making Yuuki do it—including, apparently, therapy from a go-getter who’d likely never seen the inside of an office before.

“We don’t have to talk, of course,” the counselor said. “We can just sit, have a few snacks, and then I can send you back to class.”

(“Mishima!” Kamoshida barked. “You’re staying late. God knows those receives of yours need some work.”

“Huh?” Yuuki asked, too young and stupid to realize that it was an order. “But—what about everyone else? And—”

Kamoshida leaned in so close Yuuki could smell his aftershave, something sharp that cut through the air. Behind him the rest of the teams had gone stock-still, some still mid-run to a spiking position; it all seemed so bright, compared to the look Kamoshida was giving him. “You’re. Staying. Late. I don’t have to repeat myself again, do I?”

It was hard to see anyone beyond Kamoshida’s broad shoulders, but the ones he could see shook their heads slowly, balls gripped so tight in their hands their fingers went white at the tips.

“I—um, no, coach,” Yuuki said, trying very hard to look at anything besides the jut of Kamoshida’s nose. It was _right there_. “Thank—thank you for the—the opportunity.”)

“We can’t… sit here?” Yuuki asked, half-hoping that someone would still walk by—or spy them through a window—and get Yuuki back to class sooner, where he could then while the hours away until he made a clean getaway home.

Until tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that…

“Here’s fine, but I don’t have any snacks on me. Except this.” He actually sounded sorry, too, as if Yuuki expected him to keep bags of chips in his pockets on his first day; he hefted the can, thumb pressed to the dent. “How could the machine run out of drinks? It’s not just this one, either; most of the ones on campus are sold out…”

Yuuki knew why. He’d seen Amamiya buy out the whole stock, stuffing every can into his bag. Yuuki thought it was odd, but it was the transfer student; now he had a sneaking suspicion it was for Phantom Thief work.

“… so if it’s the only one left, that must mean it doesn’t taste very good. That’s the way with vending machine drinks. The ones left behind are the ones that aren’t any good.”

Yuuki nodded, though it was more likely Amamiya ran out of change than had an aversion to plum-kelp-mango flavored Arginade—then realized that the statement also pertained to himself, stuck on the sidelines, on the bench, always the last one to be picked during team matches in gym class. How long had he lived like that, being the last one chosen? How long had he heard that he just wasn’t up to snuff?

A long time. Forever, it felt like.

“So, I can’t give it to you as a snack. If it’s no good, I’ll—I’ll drink it myself! And I’ll write out an IOU for the better snack—unless you just want to enjoy the air, Mishima? We can do that. It’s a nice day; it would be a waste to spend it indoors.”

Yuuki nodded, thinking of how sweltering it would be inside the gym come practice time. How they could throw all the windows open praying for a stray breeze and receive nothing. How they would shiver in their soaked gym clothes on the trek to the locker rooms and wind up with colds in June. How Kamoshida would yell at anyone who so much as dared to cough on his court.

His court. Not the school’s, not the team’s. _His._

The counselor cracked open the can, bracing himself for spray. Yuuki scooted away, but the drink only fizzed out over his hands to splatter all over his feet. They grimaced as one; the counselor shuddered. “I can, um, wash them off later,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Yuuki said.

“And my shirt. And the coat,” he added, because sure enough, one of his sleeves was drenched up to the elbow. Soda dripped through his lab coat.

“Maybe you should do that now?”

“No, no! I’m here for you right now, Mishima. It would be rude of me to leave after insisting on staying, and—”

The practice building doors slammed open. The counselor snapped his mouth shut, and both of them jumped; the drink went flying, skidding across the table, spilling more soda in its wake. A pair of students poked their heads around the corner as the can toppled over the edge. One of them shrank back; the other looked at the mess and said, “Geez, Doc.”

“Um,” the counselor said.

“I’ll go get some towels,” said the other student. Yuuki recognized that voice, at least—he and Aizawa had gotten along well enough when they were on the team.

Komaki picked the can up, made a face at the flavor, then tossed it in a bin. He skirted the growing puddles on the floor to lean against a machine, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Ever since he’d gotten kicked off the team with Aizawa, he’d started growing his hair out, experimenting with styles. Today the tips were bleached white.

Yuuki couldn’t look at him for long. He was still that angry, bitter boy he’d been months ago—it was in the look in his eye, in the twist of his lips, in the carefully nonchalant way he said, “Mishima. Been a while. How’s your nose?”

“It’s fine. Uh, thanks. For asking.”

Only an idiot could miss the way Komaki’s gaze flickered, just for a moment, to the counselor.

“We were talking about the drink selection,” Yuuki said, before Komaki could open his mouth and stuff his foot in it. He and Sakamoto had that in common; always saying things they shouldn’t, when they shouldn’t, with exactly the wrong people around. “Someone’s been going around buying all the machines out, it looks like. It’s hard to find anything worth your money, now.”

“Yeah,” Komaki said, “but most of us drink them. We don’t wear them.”

“He was… breaking the ice?” Yuuki offered.

Komaki shot him a glare.

The counselor picked up that train of thought like a lifeline. “Sometimes it’s good to see that adults aren’t always in control of their surroundings. Mistakes and accidents happen to everyone—”

“Shut up, Doc.”

He did, with a wide-eyed stare that said he never realized the amount of hostility one teenager could possibly hold. Komaki sneered, “I don’t wanna hear any of that pretentious crap. We all know why you’re really here, and it ain’t to help us poor fucking students. It’s too late for that. So just shut up, let us clean up _your_ mess, and let me talk to Mishima.”

The counselor looked as if he wanted to disagree, but Komaki glared harder. By the time Aizawa returned with the towels, he was slumped in his seat, fussing with his sleeve.

Aizawa handed him a towel and said, “You should probably go change, sir. There were a couple of people waiting for you at the nurse’s office. You shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

The counselor looked up, a grimace on his face at the tackiness gluing his sleeve to his skin. He nodded, took the towel, grimaced again as he stood. Before he left, he took a look around the rest area: Aizawa mopping up the soda from the table; Yuuki leaning over to clean up the bench; Komaki, still glaring. Yuuki practically heard him square his shoulders to declare, “I’d still like to see you sometime. For counseling, or for snacks. It doesn’t matter which. You know where to find me.”

Yuuki and Aizawa didn’t grace him with a response. Komaki spat, “Fucking useless bastard,” right at his back.

“Yuma!” Aizawa cried. “That’s rude!”

“It’s true!” The door to the practice building swung open, then shut. “What else is he but useless? What good is a shrink going to do us now? Where was he when we needed him?”

“Where was the school?” Aizawa shot back. Yuuki pressed a towel to the spill on the floor, still fizzing. “We know why he’s here, yeah, but that doesn’t mean we have to gang up on him! What did he do wrong, Yuma, except listen to what he was told?”

Komaki slammed a fist into a machine. “Don’t stick up for him!”

“I don’t have to stick up for him to know that you’re bullying him!”

“I’m not—” He broke off with a wordless scream. Yuuki concentrated on the spill, on the curls of soda trickling under the bench, on the sodden mess that was his towel.

“You are,” Aizawa said, much softer now. “You’re bullying him. He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s here to help us now; isn’t that enough?”

“You loved volleyball.”

“Not enough to stay.”

“Um,” Yuuki said, pointing to the extra towels stacked on the table. He didn’t want to get up and get involved in this any more than he already was—it was oddly embarrassing to be listening in, even though Komaki said he wanted to talk to him—but the spill was inching closer to his pants, and as long as he was under the table, he was practically invisible. “Could I have another towel?”

Aizawa passed him a handful. The silence was choking.

Komaki said, “Toma. Sorry. But it’s true, ain’t it? You loved volleyball, but that dick of a coach—”

“I don’t want to talk about this again. Just tell Mishima why we’re here.”

“You mean, aside from saving his ass from that counselor?”

“ _Y_ _uma_.”

It was odd, hearing Aizawa be so forceful. He’d always been meek everywhere but the court. “Yeah,” Yuuki said. “Shouldn’t you guys be in class?”

Komaki shrugged. “We said we wanted to talk to the doc, and boom! No class. But we won’t tell anybody you’re skipping if you don’t.”

“I’m not skipping, I got cornered,” Yuuki defended, and Komaki snickered.

Aizawa sighed. “We didn’t actually think we’d find you, though. You’ve been disappearing right as the bell rings, and when we stop by at lunch you’re always asleep. …You’ve been working on that site you made for the Phantom Thieves, haven’t you?”

“Who—”

“Sakamoto doesn’t exactly have a filter,” Komaki said. “I don’t know how he found out, but he did. What’d you go and do something like that for, anyway, when it’s obviously eating up all your time?”

“I just…” Had to find some way, some better way, to apologize. Saying it didn’t mean a thing if he didn’t follow through with some kind of gesture, and Yuuki doubted there was a card out there that said, _Thanks for helping me avoid getting expelled and jailing my abusive coach, sorry for spreading your criminal record!_

Besides, if he wanted to write a damn letter, he might as well make a website.

But he couldn’t tell the truth, either: that Amamiya was obviously a Phantom Thief. Saying it was an apology didn’t make much sense unless he included that bit, and he’d already sworn not to tell anyone.

“I just… wanted to support the Phantom Thieves,” he said, abandoning the sodden towels on the floor. “They helped me—they helped all of us. Why shouldn’t someone show how them how grateful other people are, too? And—and there are other people out there who need help! If the Phantom Thieves can help them, maybe then people will think—”

“That Kamoshida turning himself in wasn’t some kind of guilt trip,” Komaki said. He scowled at the table. “That asshole wasn’t sorry for a single thing he did until the Phantom Thieves did—whatever they did. Then he bawled his damn eyes out, like we could ever forgive him.”

“Exactly!” Yuuki said. “No one— _no one_ cared about Kamoshida or what he was doing until then. They turned a blind eye, or the principal said there was nothing he could do, just because he had fame and status and bolstered the school’s reputation. But—”

 _I care what he does_ , Amamiya had said. What had his face looked like, in that moment? Why hadn’t he looked Yuuki in the eye and said it? Why was he realizing now that he wanted to know?

“—the Phantom Thieves, they changed all that. Imagine how much good they could do if they just knew about it.”

Komaki and Aizawa shared a look. At some point, Aizawa had sidled up to Komaki; some of their fingers were intertwined in a lazy hold, like the day they’d run from the court. When Kamoshida kicked them off the team they’d only had each other to lean on, and half the school knew they were dating because of Oono’s loud mouth. “So,” Komaki said. “The Phantom Thieves _are_ Shujin students, then.”

“I—I didn’t—”

“You don’t have to,” Aizawa said. “It’s kind of obvious. Why go after some small-time teacher when there are bigger, dirtier fish to fry? Why go after him unless they had a stake in his fall?”

“Plus, Sakamoto has no filter.”

“And Takamaki has next to no tact,” Aizawa said. “The only one of them who’s capable enough to hide it is Amamiya, but with his reputation, people are already starting to figure it out. Even if it’s just gossip, if the police catch wind of it…”

Amamiya would go to jail, and he’d know it was all Yuuki’s fault. Yuuki promised not to tell anyone, but if the rest of the students outed them— “Y-you guys, you can’t mean—”

“Relax, Mishima. No one’s gonna spill the beans on them. The only ones who would are the teachers, and I doubt they’ve got the guts for that, too.” Komaki snorted, and rolled his eyes. “How much more bad PR would it be if the news found out that Kamoshida was taken down by some of his own students?”

And no one online would want to hear that the mysterious Phantom Thieves were high school kids, either. Who would back them after that?

Aizawa nudged his boyfriend. “We’re getting off track. The point is, we wanted you to know that—that if you ever need some help, with the site or—or anything, just let us know. We want to thank them, too.”

“You do?” _Why?_ He wanted to ask. He wanted to know. But it was probably the same reason as Yuuki: the Phantom Thieves had saved them, too. What other reason did they need?

“Duh,” Komaki said. “Because of them, Kamoshida’s going to jail. It sucks for the volleyball teams, but now nobody else has to deal with his bullshit. Ever. Never again, Mishima.”

 _Never_ , Yuuki thought, as if he hadn’t imagined it a thousand times already: the teams working hard because they wanted to, and not because some asshole high on former glory told them to. Water breaks. Not going home with a million different bruises, until it felt like even his bones were bent out of shape.

Aizawa smiled sadly, though, as if he knew the deeper truth: no matter who took over the team, people like him and Aizawa wouldn’t be welcome on it. Maybe the guy wouldn’t yell at them right in front of the whole team, but the result would be the same. They, like Yuuki, wouldn’t be wanted.

But they’d have each other. It was more than Yuuki would ever have.

He swallowed down jealousy like bile—he could be happy for them, he would be happy for them, just because he was a pathetic loser didn’t mean the rest of the world couldn’t be happy—and said, “Yeah. Never again.”

* * *

There were a lot of things Akira could say about Shujin: that it was lax in prioritizing the student’s health; that it prioritized achievements over anything else, at all; that the teachers seemed more concerned for their jobs than for their students. That the students grasped that and churned out one ridiculous rumor after another had to be their way of dealing with the stress of high school, and their looming futures, and the pressure of beating the others when only one of them could truly stand on the top.

Shujin was just like real life, Before: a bunch of selfish children learning how to be selfish adults like the ones around them, concerned more with winning than with what they lost to get there, or who they trampled on the way—

“That’s a scary face you’re making, Amamiya,” said the new counselor. He set down two steaming cups of tea, the pot, and a small basket full of snacks.

“I prefer Akira,” Akira said. He stared at the steam coming from his cup. It was easier than looking at the man in the lab coat, even if he was kind and understanding, like Ann said.

“Akira? Any reason why?”

“Just trying something different.”

This was met with a chuckle; Doctot Maruki took a sip from his cup and grimaced. “I do remember hearing something about that,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “If that’s what you prefer, I don’t mind calling you that. I want you to be comfortable here.”

Akira hummed. It was one thing to be plied with tea and snacks—Mr. Sakura only fed him curry, and was just showing him how to properly grind coffee beans, and it was enough to make him wonder when he’d be trusted in the kitchen long enough to make himself some real food—but it was another to listen to _comfortable_ and apply it to the nurse’s office, where dozens of Shujin students like Yuuki had wrestled with themselves to leave early or return to practice.

Not that it mattered what they decided, if Kamoshida was watching the gates like a hawk.

“I suppose I should start us off by saying I was given a brief rundown of your circumstances,” the doctor said. The lights glinted off the plastic wrap in the basket; Akira thought he saw the doctor shift, and the man crossed his legs at the knee. “And then, to arrive and find yourself surrounded by rumors…”

“I try not to pay attention to them,” Akira said. Just like he was trying not to pay attention to the lab coat. It wasn’t the same style as the ones on Ra Ciela, but it still drove a spike of fear into his heart.

“Just like you’re not paying attention to me? I’d understand having trouble looking an adult in the eye, but for it to be so bad you can’t bring yourself to look at one…”

He trailed off, the same way that scientist had, years and years ago. Reading every angle of his body, dissecting him down to his thought processes, knowing his breaking point after a handful of exchanged words—but Doctor Maruki was already better than that scientist and his lackeys. There was no monster waiting to rip him to pieces; there was hot tea and snacks; all of the medicine was locked away, in a cabinet on the far side of the room.

“I’m sure you’ll like him. Doctor Maruki is very nice,” Yoshizawa had said, and he vaguely remembered a conversation much like that, right after he’d escaped the lab and was fleeing the grounds. It had been staged, he was sure of it now; why else had there been no guards, no other patients, no other nurses or doctors or anyone, aside from that woman? Why else had she been there, except to stop him and entice him to do his duty?

Akira clasped his hands together; his palms were clammy with sweat. “It’s just your coat, that’s all. I don’t like them very much.”

“My coat?” the doctor asked, tugging on a sleeve. His voice was still warm, still welcoming. How could anyone sound like that? “Well, why didn’t you say so? Give me a moment.”

He got up. Akira took the chance to reach for the tea—his hands were shaking—and took a tentative sip, only to receive a scalded tongue for his trouble.

“It’ll take a while for the tea to cool down,” the doctor commented as he sat back down. He fiddled with the cuffs of his button-down, then passed Akira a rice cracker from the basket before nabbing one himself. “So, as I told Takamaki earlier, if you just want to sit and have some snacks, feel free to. You aren’t obligated to talk to me about anything. Just know that I’m here to listen if you do.”

“You took it off.”

Doctor Maruki bit into his cracker. “You said you didn’t like it. I’m not here to make you uncomfortable. If there’s something I can change, I’ll do it.”

“That’s a terrible philosophy.”

“Within reason,” the doctor amended. “I can’t afford better snacks, for instance, although I’m sure I’d get more visitors if I could. Everyone likes free food, but the better the food is…”

Akira bit his tongue, swallowing down laughter—if Ryuji got wind of high-class snacks, he’d jump at the chance to visit—and reached for his cracker. He split the plastic wrap right down the middle, broke the cracker into pieces—

(“How come you eat it like that?” Morgana asked, watching him crush the noodles in his cup while the water boiled. He was tempted to find a few extra vegetables to add to it, but Mr. Sakura was bound to notice, and he was in enough trouble already.

“It lasts longer.”

It also eliminated the need for chopsticks. The less trouble he caused his parents—even if he only used the disposable ones—the better, Before. Akira got good at making his food last, got good at finding ways to eat it without utensils. The only thing he burdened was the wastebasket, overflowing with styrofoam cups and snack wrappers.)

—but Doctor Maruki said nothing, more concerned with making sure his crumbs stayed in the wrapper instead of scattering all over his slacks. He chanced another sip of his tea and grimaced again; this time Akira did laugh, and the doctor pouted.

“You just said it was hot. Why drink it?”

“I just hoped it wasn’t as hot.”

It was ridiculous—Akira was having a hard time believing that this man, this doctor, could be as heinous and calculating as the ones on Ra Ciela. Doctor Takemi certainly was, but Akira didn’t have to look at her during her clinical trials, and he was using her as much as she was using him.

But there was always a goal, always some other reason. No one became a doctor solely to help people, Akira was sure of it—or if they did, they didn’t keep that line of thinking for very long. Eventually Doctor Maruki would be like all the rest: looking for the next person he had to hurt to help someone else.

Even if that person was himself. It was looking likely.

Akira said, “It wasn’t the coat, exactly. It was the… idea behind it. Doctors might save people, but they hurt them, too. If you could save thousands at the cost of one life, would you do it?”

“Would I? That’s a difficult question. Isn’t there a story about this in the West? It’s rather famous, isn’t it?”

Akira wouldn’t know. Western literature, outside of mystery novels, wasn’t his thing.

Doctor Maruki, undeterred by his silence, only went on. “By rights, we would have to. The only reason we can make any kind of advancements at all is by using other people—ones who are sick with a new illness, or a new strain of illness, or simply people who are healthy and offer themselves up for testing out medicine—and while we make those advancements, people still suffer. You have to… remove yourself from the present, I think. You have to look to the future in order to withstand your deeds of the day. Not everyone can be saved.”

“Not everyone, huh,” Akira said. The cracker on his tongue was salty; just the other day he’d remembered that first phone call with Goro. _Mama’s dead._ _Mama died._ The boy Akira had been did his best to be a kind ear, and Goro hadn’t stopped calling him, at least, but it still stung to know.

The one person Goro had wanted to see the most, dead, and both of them had been powerless to stop it.

“Not to mention that a treatment that works with one person may not work with another.” Doctor Maruki took up his tea, hesitating to drink. “And that everyone responds differently to—well, everything. One person may come out of a car crash with severe trauma and need years of therapy to ever set foot in one again, and another may walk away as if nothing was wrong.”

That was true, too. There were plenty of people who pushed and shoved and fought and begged for a place on board the Soreil, going so far as to harass the workers Akira put in charge of the boarding process. Some tried to bring everything they had; some tried to bribe their way to better living quarters. Some simply wanted a corner to crawl into and call their own.

Others stayed behind. Akira still thought he could hear their dying screams in the refrain of his Song. He tried not to dwell on it, most days; one of those screams had been Delta’s kind mother. Akira never would have gone on with the rest of the Trials if it wasn’t for her.

“Something on your mind?”

Akira looked at him, then: tousled brown hair that looked as if Doctor Maruki had a penchant for running his hands through it; the expectant, patient smile; the tea gradually tilting in his hand. Light blue shirt; dark blue tie; dark slacks. He was going for soothing. He was— “You’re going to spill it.”

Doctor Maruki jumped; the tea went flying. It splattered down his front, and he stared at it for a single, bewildered second before saying. “Oh, it’s not as hot now.”

He went off in search of napkins or tissues; Akira let him rummage through the cupboards and cabinets and drawers for a while, apologizing for the setback, as Akira watched the cup of tea on the table. He took another sip from his own—still slightly too hot, warm at the surface but scalding deeper down—and said, “Even still. Does hurting one person—does using them to save or better the lives of thousands of people justify it?”

They’d left Goro to burn alive on that first, dead planet. If Akira failed to make so many wonderful friends, would he have been left for dead, too? Would he have been left to starve upon that space station, with not a single person to share his burden with?

He clasped his hands together again. They felt naked without the covering of red leather gloves, and the spot where the rings had been was all wrong, too. It was too shallow, almost as if a part of him had been ripped out.

Doctor Maruki, head buried deep in a cabinet, said, “It doesn’t.” He leaned back long enough to add, “The only ones who enjoy the thought of sacrifice are—well, the rich, who are usually so far removed from common man that they often consider their poorer cousins lesser, and the ones who truly believe that laying down their lives is the ultimate act of service. Not that I condone that kind of behavior—oh, here they are!”

Akira watched him blot at the stain on his shirt, wipe at his tie, and then dab at a spot on his slacks before turning back to his hands. He’d made so many things with these hands—stuffed dolls and clothes and storybooks and meals—but he’d also taken hold of so much more. Yuuki’s hand, for that brief instance. Goro’s hand, at the center of the universe. The tiny, curling leaves of a newly-sprouted plant. The complicated series of levers and knobs that made up the Soreil’s piloting system. A knife, a gun; a shimmering Treasure, as heavy as gold.

Almost like he was—

He shook the thought away and busied himself with the cracker and tea.

When the doctor came back, his shirt still slightly darkened with stains, Akira said, “So you don’t like heroes, then.”

“Heroes? Do you consider yourself a hero, Akira?”

“No, I think I’m a dumbass getting dragged into everyone else’s problems,” Akira said. “How do you say no when someone tells you your actions will help people? How can you say no when you have every means to fight back against someone attempting to put you down? Is that heroism? Or is it just survival?”

“This is about Mr. Kamoshida, then.”

“It’s not—not entirely.” His hands—he’d made so many things, he’d taken hold of so much more, and now he knew what it was like to take, too. To fight for his own survival, to feel the catch of his knife sliding through skin and the kick of the gun in his hand.

Just because the Metaverse wasn’t real didn’t mean it wasn’t _real_.

“It’s about your arrest, then.”

“Maybe,” Akira said, tugging at a piece of hair. “I don’t know anymore. It wasn’t wrong, what I did. But it wasn’t entirely right, either.”

_That’s what you get for meddling in the affairs of two adults._

_Why can’t you think for one second, Ren?_

_Someone like you—you’re just another insect to be crushed under my heel._

_**You think too much, little savior,**_ Arsene said. _**Why worry about what’s right and wrong?**_

“What did I get out of it?”

A trip to another universe. A series of split memories—Before and After—both contradicting the other. Hundreds of thousands of little pieces of other Akiras, other Rens, ones who weren’t so fortunate to make it to the center of the universe.

Yuuki.

“What did I do it for?”

Yuuki, his voice cut through with static. Yuuki, telling him to come home again. The ghostly touch of his fingers on Akira’s cheek.

Yuuki, who he’d never see again.

“Why—”

Doctor Maruki said nothing. It was his job to listen, not to intervene. Akira wished he would, before he said something he couldn’t take back, something he’d have to explain. Explanations would only land him in an asylum, far away from his newfound friends and tentative freedom and crushing responsibilities.

He hadn’t asked for power. He hadn’t asked for a weird phone app. He hadn’t wanted to be a leader—not again. But he held lives in his hands once more—Ann and Ryuji and Morgana, fully trusting his every decision; the lives of every poor victim the Phantom Thieves swore to save—lives he didn’t want to be entrusted with. He was a teenager. Anyone would tell him it wasn’t fair.

But anyone would tell him they were jealous, too. There was power at his fingertips; power to make even haughty kings bend the knee to him. Power to make the proud, vain, arrogant masses cower in fear.

All Akira wanted was to find the one he loved. Was that too much to ask for? Did he have to be a hero to be loved?

“Why did it have to be me?”

* * *

There was a long line of students waiting outside the nurse’s office once Akira was done. No one commented as Akira left; they were likely still too scared to.

That suited Akira just fine.

He met up with Morgana at the gates, making a show of adjusting his socks while the cat jumped in his bag. There were even more people still milling about outside, clumped in groups of twos and threes, some with their noses pressed to their phones, others with their heads pressed close as they chatted about Kamoshida, about Doctor Maruki, about the police visit, about the dissolution of the volleyball teams, about tests and homework and after school jobs.

“Hey,” Morgana said, as Akira paused by the vending machines to dig change out of his pocket. The drinks were actually good for their Metaverse excursions, but he hadn’t had enough spare change to buy out every machine earlier that month. Why they helped so much with their excursions, Akira didn’t dare to ask. “You okay?”

He twisted the cap on a Dr. Salt and took a sip. Ice cold, unlike the tea. He wondered if the doctor would wind up with burns. Probably not. “I’m fine.”

Morgana stared as best he could, but with the bag firmly settled on Akira’s shoulder and dozens of students still around, there wasn’t much he could do. Akira felt his tail thrashing.

Across the tiny street, a pair of students were chatting. One of them kept shaking his head—an argument, or a disagreement, although Akira didn’t like the defeated slope of his shoulders or the way he hung his head. They locked eyes.

“I don’t believe you, but, fine,” Morgana said. “Actually—I bet it’s because you keep staying up so late. You need more sleep! Then you’ll feel better.”

“Not all of us can sleep our days away, you know.”

He made his way to the station, sipping at his drink, pointedly ignoring the student with hope in his eyes, crying for help with every cell in his body.

Akira was no hero. He was no hero at all.

* * *

Yuuku wound up too wired to sit still at home; he picked through the Phan-site, as some people at school were calling it, deleting trolls and flames and sending out requests for the names of a couple of prospective targets. He fidgeted in his chair until he wound up reading the same post three times, then gave up.

A walk. He needed a walk. Some fresh air would help, and maybe then he could focus without hearing Aizawa’s words over and over again: _if you ever need some help with the site—_

As if he needed help with the site. He was doing just fine on his own.

He wound up wandering Shibuya, head buzzing like a hive of bees. When he stopped and stared at the lights blinking in storefronts and flickering in the windows high over the street, he thought it was different from seeing them from a rooftop: they were brighter up close, more blinding, more dazzling, than he had any right to tarnish. Someone laughed, saying something about a stalker that had gotten what was coming to him.

Yuuki blinked, adrenaline a sudden cold wash down his spine. He’d never thanked Amamiya for going after that stalker, had he? He’d never said a word, and it was nearly a week since; he tugged his phone out, shot off a few messages, then stood there staring at it, as if Amamiya would respond right away. He was probably busy doing… something or other with Takamaki or Sakamoto, something more important than checking LINE for a few new messages. Or Phantom Thief work. That would definitely be more important than checking LINE—

But his reply came quickly, and was just as deflective as before: **That’s nice to know, but what makes you think I had anything to do with it?**

 _Because you care_ , Yuuki almost sent. He thought better of it, backspacing. Thinking. The lights were so bright; there were so many people wandering around. Someone drifted by with a bag of Big Bang Burger; Yuuki’s stomach complained.

Oh, right. He hadn’t eaten dinner yet.

 **Just good to know my site’s useful for the Phantom Thieves** , Yuuki sent, realizing that Komaki was right: Amamiya did have a good head on his shoulders, even if he had used it to rack up an assault charge. Yuuki supposed he should be a bit more discreet, too. Blurting out Amamiya’s secret in the middle of Shibuya wouldn’t exactly help Yuuki earn his forgiveness, and it wouldn’t help the Phantom Thieves, either. Amamiya was important to them. Yuuki felt it in his bones.

“Not just the Phantom Thieves,” Amamiya said, materializing next to him. His cat peered at Yuuki from a perch on his shoulder; Amamiya pocketed his phone in one smooth motion that Yuuki knew he could never emulate. “Or do the victims not count?”

“Vic—oh,” Yuuki said, once he’d fumbled his phone away. He supposed the girl with the stalker could be a victim. He wasn’t sure on the technicalities. “No, I, uh—of course they count. I’m just glad the Phantom Thieves are… getting something out of it, too…”

He trailed off. Repeating himself wasn’t going to do him much good, was it? Amamiya already knew he made the site to help not just other victims of abuse, but the Thieves, too.

He should have stayed home. Forget Sakamoto shoving his foot in his mouth, Yuuki was doing it himself.

“Me too,” Amamiya said, watching people go by. “But—have you eaten yet, Yuuki?”

Yuuki jumped. So Amamiya was going to call him by name, then? After everything he’d done?

(But Yuuki told him it was okay. Yuuki remembered saying it. He also remembered having to run back for his bag before the gates were closed for the day.)

“Huh? Eaten?”

“Yes,” Amamiya said. “There’s a diner right across the street. If you haven’t, maybe—”

“No!” Yuuki said. This time it was Amamiya’s turn to jump, and several people startled at the noise. A pair of businessmen glared at them. “No, I—I mean, I did eat. But, uh, if you haven’t I don’t mind keeping you company?”

Because his friends were gone, save for the cat, and if it was Yuuki he’d want someone there so he wouldn’t have to be self-conscious about taking up a whole booth for himself. But Amamiya wasn’t Yuuki—he had no reason to take his offer—

“Sure.”

Amamiya was halfway across the street before he turned around. His cat ducked back into his bag; one woman took a long, bewildered look as it did so, but kept walking, unlike Yuuki, who was frozen in place. Amamiya asked, “Aren’t you coming?”

Everything in him told him not to. He should have stayed at home, monitoring the Phan-site. He should have ignored Aizawa and Komaki and everything they said—he shouldn’t have let their words get to him—but part of him wondered why it mattered, that Aizawa wanted to help with the site. Why couldn’t Yuuki make him a moderator and let him carry some of the burden?

Because it was Yuuki’s fault, all of it, that was why, and he had no other way to make up for it. So he said, “I—yeah, just a—a sec.”

 _Stupid mouth_ , he thought as he dodged foot traffic. How was he going to hide the fact that he hadn’t eaten a thing when there was going to be food right in front of him? What sort of thought had gone through his brain to make him say yes?

They ducked up the stairs to the diner, squeezing against the wall as a pair of students from another school came down; the pair took a look at their uniforms, got all of five steps past them, then started whispering to each other. Yuuki was glad the stairwell echoed. He didn’t have to hear a thing, even if he thought he knew what it was about.

The diner wasn’t very crowded despite the hour, so he and Amamiya found a seat, ordered, and then sat there in an awkward silence for several minutes until Yuuki yawned. It went on for so long his jaw cracked.

“Up late?” Amamiya asked.

“Yeah. Gotta take care of the Phan-site. You know.”

“Phan…?”

“What, you haven’t heard?” Yuuki said. He knew Sakamoto was checking it. Takamaki, too. They hadn’t told him? “Some people thought ‘The Phantom Thieves’ Aficionado Website’ was too long, so… Phan-site. It’s pretty catchy. If I weren’t so tired all the time, maybe I would’ve come up with it… Actually, maybe I shouldn’t say that. It was… totally my idea.”

“Uh-huh,” Amamiya said, and thanked the waitress as she gave them their drinks.

Yuuki took his cola and stirred it, listening to the ice rattle. “Anyway, I’ve just been taking care of it. Still a lot of guys out there who think the Thieves aren’t real and have to bash on them. Can’t have that on the site, you know, especially if people are going there for help, and—”

He broke off with another yawn. Amamiya’s cat made a noise from his bag.

“—I guess it’s PR? Someone mentioned that, too. Gotta make the Thieves look good if we want them to get popular. Gotta make ‘em popular if we want… them to… help more people.”

He yawned; he must have been more tired than he thought. The diner’s dim lighting was almost cozy. He gulped down half his drink as Amamiya sipped at his; the waitress plunked a plate down on the table, then a smaller one in front of Yuuki. It was covered in fries.

“My treat,” Amamiya said, as Yuuki shot a questioning glance across the table.

“But I told you I already ate.”

“No one likes to sit around watching other people eat. If you really don’t want them, I’ll take them home.”

The cat complained. Amamiya scraped mystery paste off one of his sandwiches, put it on a napkin, and set it on the booth seat. Yuuki stared at his plate of fries.

“Besides,” Amamiya went on, “sounds like our manager needs to keep his strength up.”

“Manager…?” Yuuki wasn’t doing anything that important, just vetting posts and sending requests for additional info—oh, that was what a manager did. He took up a fry. “I guess—I mean, yeah, I do! Gotta work hard!”

Or harder. The more popular the Thieves became, the more work Yuuki would have to do, but it was no different from how he’d been living up until then. Volleyball practice for hours and hours. Having to choose between a halfway-decent night’s sleep and getting his homework done. Skipping meals when there was no one around to make him eat. Wishing that he could accidentally almost drown while taking a bath just so he could have a day or two off to play catch up, knowing that if he just quit in the first place things wouldn’t be so bad. Never quite managing the ‘quit it’ part.

Amamiya just smiled, something soft and half there. “But not so hard you forget to eat.”

“I told you I already ate,” Yuuki said, reaching for another fry—only to find the plate empty and his fingers covered in salt. Amamiya was barely through his first surprise sandwich, and he pushed the scraped-over half of bread Yuuki’s way. Yuuki took it and mumbled, “Thanks.”

The cat complained. Amamiya said, “And Morgana says you need to sleep more. It’s a… vital part of everyday life, sleeping.”

Morgana was peering over the edge of the table, bright blue eyes narrowed. He meowed again, sounding even more irritated. Yuuki couldn’t help but ask, “The… cat said that?”

“Cats are very wise creatures,” Amamiya said. Yuuki was sure the thumping noise was Morgana’s tail hitting him in the ribs.

“I never said he wasn’t, um, smart,” Yuuki said. It was a cat that knew enough not to make too much noise in class; it surprised everyone the few times it did speak, usually only when Amamiya was called on, like a sentry warning him of danger.

Which was probably a little too fantastical—but which fit in rather well with the mystery of the Phantom Thieves.

Yuuki yawned again. “Maybe I’ll do that when I get back. Even with that stalker business taken care of, it’s not like the Phan-site’s a hive of activity. I can probably take a day or two off to sleep, right?”

“And eat,” Amamiya reminded him, gently. Yuuki had never realized it before, but it was deep and sonorous, not unlike the tide. “You have to eat, too. Not just instant noodles and microwave curry, Yuuki. Promise?”

“Can’t,” he said, thinking of empty cupboards and an empty fridge. He couldn’t help but feel like someone had said those words to him once, but who had it been? Takaoka? Hirotaka?

Amamiya was frowning at him, though, so he added, “No one’s been grocery shopping in forever. There’s not much to eat there at all. But—but I’m sure I can scrape together enough change for something special every once in a while.”

Amamiya was quiet for several minutes after; Yuuki nibbled at his bread and sipped his drink, aware of the heaviness in his stomach and the guilt churning his insides. He was causing problems for Amamiya again. He was causing problems for everyone, it felt like. Aizawa and Komaki; the new counselor; Hirotaka.

He had to find a way to help them, too, somehow. To pay them back for all the trouble he had caused them all and would cause them all. There was nothing he could do about Hirotaka—Yuuki wasn’t even sure where he worked—but the others went to Shujin. Easing up a little on the counselor’s burdens might make him less of a disaster in the guise of a doctor, and Aizawa and Komaki could bring him rumors. They wouldn’t have to touch the site.

The cat was still watching him, gaze still wary. Yuuki said, “I’ll take that break. I will, really. But I’ll still ask around at school for rumors of anything unsettling. Like—like leg work, you know?”

Amamiya hummed, stuffing the last of his sandwich in his mouth. Yuuki tried not to watch as he licked mystery paste off his fingers, because it was rude and not because it was Amamiya, with his kind voice and (likely) fierce gaze and his declarations of _I care what he does_. Amamiya, who was leader of the Phantom Thieves. Amamiya, who was far more than Yuuki ever dared to dream of becoming.

“And,” he kept going, once it was obvious Amamiya was done contributing to the conversation even though Yuuki wasn’t ready for it to be over, “maybe it’ll win some of the more skeptic students to our side. If they see that the Phantom Thieves care even about the small-time crooks and not just the big ones—”

“They’ll help spread the word,” Amamiya finished, raising a hand for the receipt. He gave another of those smiles. Yuuki’s stomach dropped. “That’s great, Yuuki. I know the Phantom Thieves will enjoy being the talk of the town.”

Yuuki thought he’d heard Sakamoto griping about not being more popular after Kamoshida’s arrest, but… “You, too?”

“That’s a tough one.” Amamiya stacked their plates, then rested his chin on his hands. “I mean, who doesn’t? For better or worse, people know who you are, then, right? Anyone doing good would want people to talk about them. And besides—let’s say the Thieves went after some big name crook, someone doing skeevy work behind the scenes of a good, law-abiding… company. Not only would the general public not be able to understand the accusations leveled against said crook, but the crook himself wouldn’t have anything to fear. Do you know why, Yuuki?”

Yuuki wracked his brain for an answer. Kamoshida had certainly thought so, but look at what had happened: one single threat made against him, and he’d blown his top in terror. Who wouldn’t be afraid of thieves?

Amamiya leaned a bit closer, his voice dropping low, like he was sharing a secret. Yuuki found himself leaning in; across the table, Morgana leaned in, too. “Because all the good he’d achieved with those skeevy practices would be undone if it ever came to light. He’d make sure his company knew. He’d make sure to be protected from all manners of blackmail and bribery. The only thing that would matter to him then is the knowledge that, no matter how tight his security or how hard he tries to hide, there are some fates that can’t be avoided.”

The cat meowed. Amamiya nodded. “If the Thieves can work their way up the food chain, no one will believe they can hide. No one will believe they’re immune. Because if the Thieves work their way up, the farther they burrow themselves into people’s hearts.”

“Their… hearts?” Yuuki asked, afraid to know.

Before Amamiya could answer, the waitress came over with his receipt. He grabbed up his bag—Morgana hurrying to duck inside—and said, “Make sure you get that rest, Mister Manager.”

“I—yeah,” Yuuki said. “You too.”

Another smile, like he wasn’t actually happy with what he’d heard. Yuuki barely heard his farewell over the blood rushing through his ears.

He was acting.

It was obvious, Yuuki thought on his way home. Amamiya couldn’t look at him for more than ten seconds at a time; his glasses hid his wandering gaze, but that smile cinched it. It was exactly the kind of smile Yuuki had gotten several times in middle school, when he’d tried to bring up a game or TV show with his classmates, so desperate to make friends that he rambled until they made an excuse and fled the room. They’d smiled like that, too, and he’d believed they were sorry.

But they weren’t.

And Amamiya, too. He was _acting_ —acting like he and Yuuki were some form of friends, acting like he gave a shit about what Yuuki had to say, acting like he cared—

Yuuki tripped, caught himself on a streetlamp, and stood there staring at the sidewalk. People still moved around him, caught up in their own little worlds. None of them gave him a second glance.

Just like Amamiya would, if Yuuki stopped bothering him.

Well. Yuuki could do that. Amamiya only wanted information for the Phantom Thieves’ work, and that was all Yuuki had to give him. It was the only use Yuuki had, outside of warming benches and being a general waste of air.

…He had to find a way to pay Amamiya back for the food. He had to do a lot of things, he was finding. Every time he opened his mouth there was something new waiting to be discovered.

Yuuki decided, then and there, that he wouldn’t be such a useless burden anymore.


	5. Justice, Rank 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some descriptions of a car crash victim, non-consensual drug use, and death in this one. While I'm not sure if it's enough to tag, Goro is pretty explicit here as he processes, I think.
> 
> The lines he shouts at the officer toward the end should roughly translate to "It's the truth! Even if you don't believe it, it happened to me!"

The funeral was a lonely affair.

Goro hoped that some of their neighbors would show up; instead it was just some of the ladies from Mama’s work, and a couple of repeat clients. Makishima and his wife sat in the back the whole time, Makishima looking dumbstruck and his wife looking as if she’d bitten into a lemon.

Goro sat by himself, off in a corner. He ignored the stares shot his way, and tried to ignore the whispers—

“Barely eight years old, how can he—”

“Who in the world will want him?”

“—heard she was ashamed—”

—until Goro drowned them out. He’d gotten to pick out Mama’s photo, one from years earlier where she looked her prettiest, in a deep green sundress and her hair pulled up and a smile on her face.

Not that anyone was looking at the photo. Most of them were looking at him, chattering into handkerchiefs pressed to their mouths, as if prepared to cry.

It was bullshit. They just wanted an excuse to gossip.

But he couldn’t ask them to leave. Mama would be happy to know that anyone came to her funeral, much less the handful of people scattered about the seats. Mama would be happy to know that she meant something to someone. Goro was sure of it.

He just wished they would stop talking.

“—jumped right in front of it, that’s what I heard—”

“Poor thing. If only she’d been smarter—”

 _Mama_ is _smart!_ Goro wanted to shout; but if he did he’d be kicked out, and Mama was always telling him to mind his manners because he had more to prove than the other kids. People remembered the rude ones, and the poor ones, and the bastard children who had no fathers to call their own, so the least he could be was polite. He bit his lip instead.

In another world—in a world he would never see again—Mama was alive. She wanted him to come home. She was waiting for him; Akira said so, and Akira never lied. But here, where it mattered, she was dead. She’d been turned into paste by a truck careening down a hill. Goro hadn’t even gotten to see her once.

If he had known that this was how it was going to go, he would have stayed behind. He would have let Akira go home on his own and become a true part of that distant universe where he had friends who cared about him, friends he wanted to protect.

But he hadn’t, so blinded by desire to return that he never thought Mama would be dead before he ever got to see her. Akira would tell him he couldn’t be blamed for not knowing. Akira would tell him that it was okay to cry, surrounded by all these people who only had bad things to say about Mama—but Goro couldn’t. He was almost eight, and he was all alone. That meant he had to be strong.

It took forever for everyone to finally get bored enough to leave—first the clients, then Makishima and his wife, then the ladies—until it was only the priest in the corner, largely forgotten, Goro, and the nice officer, the one who had nothing better to do than watch over a kid all day. He leaned down. “Are you sure you want to see it?”

Everyone else had. Why shouldn’t he? “I want to.”

It would be the last time he ever saw Mama. Of course he wanted to.

The officer took him by the hand and led him up to the casket. There weren’t many flowers surrounding it—they hadn’t had the money for it—but Goro waited as the officer scooped up whatever remained and handed them over—sun-yellow chrysanthemums, pure-white lilies. They made him think of the flower crown he’d tried to make, simple daises and dandelions picked from the riverbank, petals trailing in his wake as the loose weave came undone in his mad rush home.

He pulled the last of them from his pocket. It was wilting, its petals going brown; he wanted to tuck it behind her ear. She’d be prettiest that way.

He thought of trucks, and car crashes, and the occasional bit of roadkill he’d spy on his way to school. He thought of a person mashed down, their bones squished into jelly, their skin paper-white with all the blood squeezed out.

Mama didn’t look like that.

It was the makeup, he thought. If he looked close enough he could see the ridges of stitches holding the skin of her face together, and there were dents where the bones had collapsed and been propped back up—but it was Mama. There were the freckles across the bridge of her nose, and the slight bend of one of her ears, and the soft tilt of her mouth that always looked like a smile.

(Did he look like her? Would he look like her in the future, if he got old and gray? Or would he forever search for some trace of her in the lines of his face, cursed with his father’s looks?)

“Mama,” he said. It came out a squeak; she was so pale, so still, so utterly lifeless. Someone had cut her hair. Some of her fingernails had been torn off. He was vaguely sure that one of her eyes was made of wood, and her kimono hung on her funny from a series of broken ribs and collapsed organs.

It had probably hurt. His own death had hurt. Getting hit by a truck had to hurt, didn’t it?

His eyes burned. Knowing that it hurt—that it had to have hurt, how could it not?—and that she had been alone, with no one around to comfort her, just as he had been—why was that the hardest part?

Still. He had a job to do—but his eyes burned harder with every flower he placed around her head, the stems tangling in her hair, the leftover daisy going behind her ear. She was cold when he touched her, letting his fingers brush her cheeks, her jaw, the corner of her smiling mouth. Despite how pale she was, when he was done, she was pretty, surrounded by all those flowers.

He didn’t care that he’d had to place most of them himself. He didn’t care that the others had simply tossed theirs in with little care, not wanting to look at her for too long. He didn’t care about the officer still at his side, or about the priest in the corner, chanting sutras under his breath.

“Mama,” he said, his voice low. It didn’t matter in the quiet of the room, but he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “I love you. I love you, Mama. I came home, see? I’m here. I’m here. I’m here, but—but you’re not, and—a-and it’s not fair, it’s not fair—you promised you’d wait for me, Akira said so. W-why didn’t you wait, Mama? Mama, I—”

He had nothing else to say. It wasn’t fair, but Akira wasn’t a liar. It wasn’t fair, but where else could he have gone? It wasn’t fair, but—

But it was what he wanted. To see Mama again, even just once. To look at her smiling face as he praised her cooking, no matter how burnt the food was; to watch her brush her hair in the evening as she got ready for work. To listen to her fret over bills when he was home sick with cold; to give her the biggest, tightest hug he could and smell her shampoo.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.

Like how it wasn’t fair that the officer pried his hands off the casket and none-too-gently led him back to his seat. The priest’s chanting grew even louder; the pallbearers came in, ready to take the casket—to take Mama—

“No!” Goro shouted, leaping from his seat. The priest winced as his voice shrieked and cracked. “Don’t take her! Don’t take Mama away! Please, please don’t—”

“Kid, come on,” the officer said, holding him back, hauling him up into the air. Goro’s feet swung wildly; the man grunted with effort. “Just let them do their jobs. You gotta be good for your Mama. It’s what she would want, right?”

The pallbearers, at least, didn’t hear them—they shut the lid on Mama’s sleeping face, her hair tangled with flowers—and hauled her out to the waiting car.

“No!” Goro shrieked. “Please! Mama! _Mama_!”

He screamed, and cried, and yelled—and yet the men taking Mama away didn’t so much as turn around, didn’t so much as acknowledge what he was saying.

(“I don’t want to!” Goro wailed, the sterile walls of his cell closing in. The doctor in her lab coat gave orders, and the nurses raced to obey; they readied a series of needles, syringes filled with liquid glittering like jewels in the lights, and he knew that they would hurt. They would burn in his blood like fire; they would sting under his skin like a thousand pins. They would make him see and hear things he didn’t want to; they would make him talk to the monster still caged at the other end of his cell.

But none of them listened, preferring the doctor and her orders. Their eyes were cold and dead as they pulled him out of his corner and held him down; their hands were like ice, and then the fire came and burned him up from the inside out—)

“Kid!” the officer yelled, shoving him down into his seat and holding him there. The hearse door slammed shut; Goro struggled to see it over the officer’s shoulder. “Your Mama’s dead, kid. Do you understand? No matter how or why she died, she’s dead. You can’t bring her back by crying and carrying on like this.”

“But—” Goro sniffed. “But I—I wanted to see her again. It’s not fair!”

“I know it’s not fair. Promise not to run off and I’ll let go, understand?”

The doors the pallbearers had taken Mama through were closed. He could hear the rumble of the car as it sped away, carrying Mama with it.

Goro shut his eyes, trying not to see the empty spot where Mama had lain, or the scattered petals around the floor, or the priest in the corner, still quietly chanting. “Okay,” he said.

“There’s a good boy,” the officer praised. Goro thought he might leap to his feet once the officer sat back—he could still catch up to the car if he ran fast enough, couldn’t he?—but instead he sagged. There was no point in chasing after Mama. She was dead.

She was _dead_.

“Akechi, I know this is hard for you. You must love your Mama very much.”

“I do,” Goro said. Enough to kill whole worlds for. Enough to slaughter a whole universe to see one more time. And—he _had_ killed people to get back to her, hadn’t he? He’d killed dozens to create that first experimental god. He’d killed people’s moms and dads, just to see his own again.

And she was dead.

What was the word for that? Revenge? Retribution? Karma?

Was that why she died? Because he was bad? Because he killed?

“Well, your Mama—she wouldn’t want you to make a fuss over this, okay?”

(“It doesn’t matter how hard you cry, boy,” the doctor said, watching him with disinterest bordering on annoyance. He’d been crying—the tests hurt, the lessons were too hard, the monster scared him—but she didn’t care. “You were brought here for a reason. I suggest you learn how to do it.”)

“You’ve got to be brave! Like—like a superhero! You like Featherman, right? Just like them!”

(“You’re the only one who can do this, boy.”)

“It’s going to be hard, Akechi. No one likes it when their loved ones die. But just because we lose the people closest to us doesn’t mean the world stops turning. Eventually we have to move on.”

(“If you don’t, well. Would you like to be responsible for over a billion deaths, boy?”)

“Chasing after her won’t do you any good—”

(“—this is the only task we’ll ask of you. The least you can do, brat—”)

“—and if you can’t be good, I won’t be able to take you over to the crematorium. Your Mama would want you to—”

(“—do as I tell you. Just do what I say. Unless you stop whining and start learning, there—”)

“Akechi?” the officer asked.

Goro blinked. Slowly, the world around him came back into focus: the officer and the priest in their dark uniform and robe; the scattered petals on the floor; Mama’s photo, framed in black. Gone was the lady in the lab coat with her puckered lips and her upturned nose and the monster prowling in its glass enclosure and the sharp, stinging prick of needles and fire as it burned through his veins.

“Kid’s just lost his mother,” berated the priest, when Goro didn’t answer, “and you’re sittin’ there, tellin’ him to be brave? Kids should cry if they gotta. It’s the only time anybody’ll let ‘em.”

“Cry, sure, but I can’t stop them from taking her!”

Taking her to the crematorium, where they’d burn her—not alive, because she was dead. Not alive like Goro had been, when the cold, heartless metropolis he’d been abandoned in finally erupted into flames as the planet purged itself of steel and concrete and every lifeless thing mankind had built.

Lifeless, like Mama. Not like Goro, who had been very much alive to feel the flesh burn right off his bones—to feel the air sear his lungs—to watch as the great buildings all around him began to collapse, one by one. He’d been dead before they crushed him, his bones brittle in the heat.

But Mama deserved better.

“I’m sorry,” Goro said to the officer, and couldn’t stop himself from sniffing again. Mama wouldn’t feel the fire. Mama wouldn’t burn from the inside out. She was already dead. “I’ll be good, I promise. I just—I miss her. And now she won’t come back.”

The priest nodded, intent on staying until he and the officer left. The officer sagged. “I’m not blaming you for crying; the good priest here has that right. Kids should cry when they need to. But we can’t stay here any longer; it’s not fair to the people who have to clean up.”

Goro almost said that he could clean up—but the officer was right; there were already people hovering in the doorway, ready to sweep up the mess and stack the chairs.

It was his fault they couldn’t do their jobs. That wasn’t being polite.

But, even so. Mama had been taken away. There were so many things he hadn’t gotten to tell her—about Akira, and that other universe, and the friends he’d made, and how much he missed her. She was gone before he had the chance to say any of it.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

… But Goro was familiar with not right and not fair.

He sniffed one more time, and scrubbed at his eyes, not caring about how red or puffy they were. The officer got up and left for a minute or so, and when Goro was ready to leave, he came back, Mama’s photo in his hands. “Here,” he said, handing it over. “She’d want to be with you.”

Goro took it. It was just a photo, in a simple black frame; the edges dug into his arms, and it was cold and stiff as he hugged it to him. It made the tears swell up all over again: it was so different from the real, warm hug he’d wanted so badly. The workers scurrying in to clean up, not even giving him a glance, made him feel small. Even the officer, with all his words on what it meant to be strong, didn’t seem to be looking at him anymore.

The only person who would was gone. Goro was well and truly alone.

* * *

Miss Mako from Mama’s work met him at the crematorium, her makeup carefully reapplied, her kimono rumpled in a few spots, as if she’d wrung the fabric without thought. Goro left Mama’s photo in the officer’s car, and Miss Mako gave him her hand as they went inside.

“It won’t be long before they’re done,” she said. Then she sniffed.

Goro wondered if she was one of the whisperers at the funeral. Probably not; she and Mama were friends, even if they were only work friends, and her hand was warm in his, warm like he’d wanted Mama’s to be.

“Why’d she have to die, Miss Mako?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Miss Mako said. Her grip tightened. “But I know she wouldn’t have—have left you voluntarily. The gods of death must have dragged her kicking and screaming. I know she fought hard to hold on.”

She couldn’t know. No one had been by Mama’s side except the nurses—Goro shuddered—and the doctors. People who would have tried to save her, because it was their job.

(People who should have tried to save him, but saved themselves instead.)

“Mama was good at fighting.”

A sharp breath; Goro panicked, thinking that what he said wasn’t appropriate—but it was true. Mama was always fighting. Mama worked hard to make money. Mama dragged herself out of bed even when she didn’t feel good. Mama fought herself and she always won.

“Oh, Goro,” Miss Mako said, sounding ready to cry again. She smiled at him, though it wobbled at the edges. “Yes, yes she was. She was very good at fighting.”

They went quiet, sitting in the waiting room with a handful of other families. They bunched up in corners, taking up ten to fifteen chairs easy, and Goro thought that it wasn’t fair that Mama only had him and Miss Mako.

“We might drop some, but I’m sure Emiko won’t mind, don’t you?” she asked.

“Only if we drop them too much.” He was sure that her ghost, her soul, would feel every dropped bone like a blow—and he didn’t want to cause her pain, didn’t want to be the reason she hurt even more. He remembered the sting of fire long after the planet he’d died on became an empty, cold rock hurtling through space, the ashes of a little boy so much dust on the wind.

“Well, we’ll have to be careful, then.”

They were: Goro picked up the smaller bones while Miss Mako worked on the bigger ones. He had never realized how big people were, even when they were nothing but ash and bones: Mama’s limbs seemed so long they wouldn’t fit in her urn, but each piece made its way inside.

Goro supposed it helped that so many of them were broken. The thought made him want to cry again; Miss Mako, working steadily despite her own tears, picked up a little lump of metal lodged somewhere around her spine.

“She hated taking it off,” she said, out of nowhere, turning it around to catch the light. “She said—she said the most important person in the world gave it to her, so she hated taking it off. Do you know who that was, Goro?”

(“Oh, Goro!” Mama cried, holding up the ring. Goro didn’t know what the big deal was, but everyone’s Mama wore a ring but his, and that didn’t seem fair. “It’s lovely! Where in the world did you find it?”

“I won it at school,” Goro said, frowning. It wasn’t as pretty a ring as the other Mamas wore. It was a cheap little thing, fit for a kid to wear. “There was a contest, and it was one of the prizes.”

If Mama cared that it was cheap or not fit enough for a grownup, she didn’t say; instead she squeezed it on her finger, examined it some more, then showed it off. Cut glass dyed a bright pink sparkled in the light of the window. “How does it look?”

If Mama didn’t care, Goro didn’t care. He tackled her into a hug, squeezing as tight as he could. “It’s pretty, just like you, Mama.”)

“Me,” Goro said. He sifted the ashes around, finding a squiggle of melted glass. He put it in the urn before his tears could blind him and heard the _tink_ as Miss Mako followed suit.

“She loved you, Goro,” Miss Mako said. “She’d never want to—to leave you.”

“I know.” But that wasn’t really true, was it? He wasn’t the only person she loved. “She—she wouldn’t want to leave you, either, Miss Mako. You were friends. Doesn’t that mean she loved you too?”

“Oh, I—I suppose it does.” She didn’t sound convinced—but then she smiled, even as she cried. “No, you’re right. She would mourn me too, if I died, wouldn’t she? A world without either of us in it—that used to be something I couldn’t imagine.”

And a world without Goro—he was sure that the only reason Mama was waiting for him was Miss Mako’s steady support. She wouldn’t have abandoned Mama, not for any reason.

They kept sifting through the rest of her ashes, picking up bones and teeth. Everything else was gone—her hair, the flowers, the kimono he’d imagined her wearing as a bride when somebody finally realized she was more than just Goro’s Mama. Now nobody would.

How many times would he cry today? A hundred times? A thousand? What would he do once the tears were all gone? Would he cry for her tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after?

Would he ever stop crying for her, like he’d stopped crying for himself?

By the time they were done Miss Mako’s makeup was smudged again, her handkerchief covered in colorful blots, and Goro’s face felt scraped raw. His eyes hurt, in a weird, wrung-out way, and his nose was so stuffed up he could barely talk. Mama’s urn was so heavy he couldn’t carry it; Miss Mako had to haul it down the long hall and out to the parking lot, where the officer in his car was still waiting. Miss Mako strapped it in carefully, took a long moment to look at the photo Goro left behind, and pulled out her handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes one more time before getting in.

Goro wondered who had taken her to the crematorium, then decided it didn’t matter: they weren’t there anymore. He wanted to think that it was one of the rude whisperers, and that she’d yelled at them for what they said, and that was why she’d been left behind, but he couldn’t know. No doubt she wouldn’t tell him, even if he asked.

So Goro got in the car, too, sitting in between Mama’s urn and the photo; with one hand on each he could almost feel her there at his side. It wasn’t quite the same as he thought he remembered it—warmth, and softness, and laughter trickling into his ears—

The car rumbled underneath him. The officer and Miss Mako talked quietly, and Goro shut his eyes, trying to bring back that distant memory. Warmth and softness. Hair tickling his cheeks. A bright, wide grin.

_Prim knows a magic spell!_

Eyes, dancing with light and life and laughter. Eyes as bright as the sun; eyes as warm as melted chocolate.

Mama, saying: _Look, Goro. Look at the balcony. See the little birdie there?_

Prim, exclaiming: _It’s so pretty! Birds are so pretty, right? Prim could watch them forever!_

Mama, saying: _One day we’ll go to the sea. We’ll go for a whole day; we’ll make sandcastles and look for seashells—_

Prim: _—and play in the water! Won’t that be fun? It looks like fun! We gotta have fun before you guys leave!_

Mama: _And I’ll make us a lunch. What would you like? Rolled omelets? Meatballs?_

Prim: _We gotta have onigiri! And—and suckiyucky! And—_

(Mako turned around in her seat. Goro was awfully quiet, even for a boy who’d cried his eyes out—but he was asleep, head tossed back, mouth slightly ajar, both of his hands curled around Emiko. One of his feet kicked in his sleep, and he grunted. Officer Hayasaka took the briefest of looks through the rear view mirror and asked, in a low voice, “I hate to ask this, but… Do you know if Miss Akechi had any… problems, Miss Asano?”

“Problems?” They all had problems. Problems with men, with family, with the neighbors, with the town. Problems with their job and their inability to move up in the world. Problems with their children and their future.

“Did anyone ever threaten Miss Akechi? Or her son?”

“I—no, I don’t think so.” Or, if anyone did, Emiko never told her—but that didn’t sound much like Emiko at all. She’d admitted, late one morning at the club, that the charismatic politician on TV all the time was Goro’s father. She was sure of it. If Emiko could admit something like that, she could easily confess getting threats.

Officer Hayasaka sighed, then chanced another glance in the rear view. “Do you remember what he said, when he came to the club?”

She remembered him crying, a container of curry in one hand and the club’s business card in another. His clothes were covered in grass stains, but his hands were clean. _Mama doesn’t love me anymore?_

No, not that. What had he said after that? What had it been?

“If you don’t remember—”

“‘Did they take her?’” she quoted. Emiko always praised her ability to remember lines and quotes and various trivia. Mako supposed having a background in theater did that to a person. “‘I already helped them. They promised they wouldn’t anymore. They said they’d be better.’”

“So?”

“Well, Emiko said he was being bullied—”

“Kids who get bullied don’t look like that.”

The sheer terror in his eyes. The betrayal plain on his face. The anger, before she’d explained. He’d looked years older, just for a split second. Like an old man with a long-held grudge.

“So?” the officer prompted. “Does anyone come to mind?”

That politician—everyone knew they got up to no good. But why take Goro and then bring him back? Why not just get rid of him? Why would a grown man like that need Goro’s help?

He didn’t. A grown man, needing a seven-year-old child’s help? If anyone knew, he’d be laughed out of the business. People would question his ability to lead.

“No,” she said. “But—”

“How about someone he could call if there was an emergency? Did Miss Akechi ever mention someone like that?”

“No, of course not,” she said, but her mind was racing now. “Is that what he did? Did he call someone?”

“When we took him home, he made a phone call. Lasted an hour or so. We traced it to a family in Iwate prefecture. You’re sure she never mentioned anyone?”

In Iwate? “No, never. Her family lived in Hiroshima, last time she told me.” They also weren’t on speaking terms. Emiko was disowned; Goro, for all his need of a family, wouldn’t be welcome there. Sins of the parent and all that.

He sighed again, taking one hand off the wheel the scrub at his forehead. “The comments we could explain as a—a bad dream. Maybe he dreamed someone took him away. That happens. But we can’t explain the phone call. Why would he call someone who’s not related to him? Why would he call anyone at all?”

“I don’t know,” she said. The car cruised to a stop. Goro squirmed in his sleep, and yet his hands didn’t move. The officer tapped the steering wheel with a finger, impatient with the light or the pedestrians or Goro’s enigmatic words.

“It’s not my job to figure it out, but,” he said, voice going low and rough, “if I don’t, it’ll haunt me. It can’t have been a murder; the truck driver called it in as soon as it happened, and he was too distraught to lie. The doctors made him take the rest of the day off just so he could settle his nerves. It was an accident. A really unfortunate one.”

One that half her coworkers was speculating to be a suicide. As if Emiko would do that to Goro. As if she would ever leave him alone like that. That was the whole point of her stay in a rehab clinic over in—

“What?” the officer asked.

Mako, who had slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her sudden gasp, shook her head. How could she forget that? How could she forget how despondent Emiko was before going—or how happy she was after? How long ago had it been? Two years? Three?

Would Goro remember that visit? Did she still have a business card tucked away somewhere, one with a phone number connected to a family in Iwate written on the back?

She might. But she might not, and how would Goro know about it? Did everyone take their children with them to such places? Was that who he had called—an old playmate, someone else who remembered Emiko?

She explained it in bits and pieces, constantly checking over her shoulder to see if Goro was awake and listening. Officer Hayasaka listened and nodded and tapped at the steering wheel, taking his own glances.

She wondered what would happen to the boy now. Where would he go? Who would take care of him? She would, but professional escort wasn’t exactly a respectable job. No one would entrust her with a child. She was hardly seen as being able to take care of herself.

But she let herself sink into fantasies: becoming Goro’s mother; taking weekly trips to Emiko’s grave until they were both ready to move on; Goro, happy and smiling, proud of his test scores or his placement in a race or even in his attempt to cook dinner. Someone else being there in her tiny, empty apartment. Someone to fill up the holes in her life she filled with mindless TV and endless sleeping and an extensive beauty routine.

It was no reason to take care of a child, especially one that wasn’t hers—but she indulged anyway, in the same old routine she had for years.)

* * *

By the time they made it back to the apartment, Goro was tired. Even after his nap, he was tired; he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep until morning. Miss Mako offered to visit and make him dinner, but then glanced at the officer and moved it to another day. Goro didn’t remember when.

Before she left, she placed a small hunk of bone in his hand. “It was the one closest to her heart,” she said, folding his fingers over it. “She’ll always be with you, Goro.”

Then she was gone, before Goro had the words to thank her, and the officer was ushering him back into his seat, and then he was home, with Mama’s bone in one hand and her photo in the other.

He didn’t know what to do with all the space. Would he have to go through Mama’s things? Would he have to throw out the clothes she liked to wear, or sell the few bits of jewelry she owned? He hated the thought of someone else going through her things, but he hated the thought of having to decide himself—

“Akechi,” said the officer, still in the genkan. Goro had kicked his stuffy dress shoes off without a thought, padding into the main room, trying to find a good spot for Mama’s photo until he left.

He’d have to leave. No one trusted a kid to live on his own.

He expected the officer to say something like that, so he turned around, heart steeled. The officer asked, “Akechi. What did you mean when you said you already helped someone? What did you think happened to your Mama?”

Goro looked at him—jaw clenched, one finger tapping, a dark glower in the tilt of his head—and then looked to the bone in his hand, streaking soot across his palm. He was just a kid; no one would believe him. “I thought she got taken away.”

“By who? To where?”

“By the bad guys. Who else would take her?”

“Akechi,” the officer said, voice nearing a growl. “Be serious, now.”

“But they were bad.” The needles. The blank looks, like they were looking at a tool. The monsters. The fire in his veins; the fire that burned him up until he was less than dust, leaving only his soul behind to wander the emptiness of space. “I wouldn’t want Mama to go there. They were—bad. Mean. Awful people.”

Except for Casty and Prim and Akira, everyone else treated him like a tool. He was used. He was stuffed into a tube and worked down to the wisps of his soul; no one listened to him then. No one cared what he wanted.

“Are they real, Akechi? Can they come back and take someone else, like you thought?”

“They already did. They took Akira. But we helped them, we gave them what they wanted, and then we came home.”

No one could complain if he only told the boiled-down truth. No one could complain if he left out details like it being in another universe or that coming home meant Singing with God, forgetting himself in the mass of love that watched over the whole universe. It had felt like being with Mama.

The officer stood there and thought for a while, but finally said, “Was Akira the one you called?”

“I wanted to make sure he got home, too,” Goro said, thinking of that conversation. How he’d just cried, instead of talking, like he’d wanted. “But he doesn’t remember. I think it’s too early. He’ll remember someday.”

Akira said so. If he didn’t remember right away, it was because he hadn’t been taken yet. Goro told himself that five or ten years wouldn’t be so long; it would go by in the blink of an eye.

“When did they take you, Akechi?”

The edges of Mama’s bone dug into his hand. He imagined the skin splitting open, blood collecting between his fingers, the hot, sharp pain as the fire left his body. There was something in the officer’s eyes he couldn’t place, some pleading question, as if he couldn’t stand to know the answer.

But he wouldn’t understand the truth.

But Goro was tired. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, the sheets still smelling like Mama, and sleep until he woke years later, Akira impatiently waiting at his side. So he said, “The day Mama died. I was at the riverbank playing by myself, and then I wasn’t. Mama didn’t die, then. I don’t know why.”

“Akechi,” sighed the officer.

Goro shook his head. “I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but it’s true. I waited and waited for Mama to come home, but she didn’t, and I thought they must have taken her, too. I didn’t think she’d die. I didn’t want her to die. I wanted—I wanted—”

Everything. Everything he had before, even when Mama got mad at him for making a mess, even when she really wasn’t feeling good and all he had to eat that day was cereal right out of the box. He missed his kind, happy Mama, but he missed the Mama who cried over her bills when she should have been sleeping and the Mama who got angry at the news on TV. Mama wouldn’t always listen to him, but he’d wanted it, wanted her.

His eyes burned again, but nothing slipped out. Akira would know what to do and what to say, but he wasn’t Akira. He was just a kid. No one listened to a kid.

“Alright,” said the officer. Goro wasn’t sure if he’d just given up or if he actually believed him. “Someone—someone took you away, but you came back. This Akira person helped you come home. I won’t tell anybody else. Lord knows they wouldn’t believe me.”

He added the last bit in that low, rough tone, like he was hoping Goro wouldn’t hear—and he’d known that no one would believe him, but it still sent a surge of anger through him.

“fuai-ro-fan-iz!” he shouted. “on-oi iyon-ne mu-cien-an oz, syun-ray-nr!”

Before the officer could say anything more, Goro fled to the bedroom, shutting himself in the closet. He kicked aside pairs of Mama’s heels for room to stretch out, setting her photo against the wall and curling around her bone.

Mama would believe him. Mama would listen.

But Mama was gone.

* * *

In the morning, Goro made himself the last of the eggs. He burned them, but they were still edible, even if he didn’t like how they tasted—nothing like Mama’s, and nothing like he imagined Akira’s to, either. Maybe he’d never get any better at cooking. Maybe none of his foster parents would care to teach him how to cook.

He hoped they would. He didn’t want to forget everything Mama and Akira taught him, and he didn’t want to be a burden, either. If he could cook, maybe his new parents would like him more.

Even if he didn’t like the thought of needing new parents.

After he ate, he washed all the dishes and dried them and stacked them in the boxes on the floor in the kitchen. He’d asked for some from the landlady, and she had grumbled and complained, and there weren’t nearly enough for everything. Things Goro could take and things he couldn’t; things Miss Mako would keep safe for him, like Mama’s favorite books and photo albums and the pretty white dress she’d wanted to wear at her wedding, tucked safely in the back of the closet; things Goro couldn’t take and didn’t want to keep that could be sold to pay the funeral costs.

He had the day off from school to pack. Miss Mako was supposed to visit that night, bringing him some food. The landlady was supposed to bring him lunch, but she must have forgoten; Goro worked straight until the doorbell rang. When he answered it, his head was spinning.

“Goro! Good evening,” Miss Mako said, trying to smile and nearly succeeding. The officer at her back nodded a stiff greeting.

All Goro could focus on was the food in their hands. It smelled so good he was reaching for it before they even stepped inside; the officer handed him a light bag. He ripped it open to reveal paper plates and plastic forks and cups.

Miss Mako laughed at the face he made. “Relax, Goro. We’ve got the food. What do you say we have a little fun with it, hm?”

“You shouldn’t play with food, Miss Mako.”

“But we won’t be playing with it,” she said, setting the bags on the floor and tugging a big blanket out of one of them. “We can have a picnic! What do you say?”

“A picnic?” But the sun was going down, and they were in the middle of town, and they didn’t have time to go anywhere—

“Yes!” Miss Mako exclaimed. “We can have one right here! Something fun before you have to—to go.” She stuttered, smile wobbling.

Prim looked like that, in the days before Goro and Akira departed for the center of the universe. They spent hours playing games and chatting. Goro didn’t need to eat and neither did Prim, but they packed lunches anyway, and they would spend more hours finding the perfect hill to stop and eat them on.

Prim looked like that, but she had smiled for his sake.

Then he thought of Mama. Mama always wanted to take him out for a picnic lunch by the river, but she never had the time. So he asked, “Can Mama come too?”

Miss Mako cried at that, nodding without a word.

Goro raced for the bedroom and his box of things. He thought he heard Miss Mako sob, once, before stopping in the door.

There was a plush doll sitting on his box.

He peeked into the living room: Miss Mako spreading out the blanket, the officer bringing over the bag Goro left behind.

He turned back to the room. The doll sat there, right on top of his box, the one with Mama’s photo in it. He’d wrapped it in old newspaper the landlady didn’t need anymore so the glass wouldn’t break. She’d clicked her tongue at him for asking for too many things all at once.

With careful, trembling hands he touched the doll—still as soft as he remembered—and put it on the floor, out of sight. Just to be safe, he shut the door when he was done.

Dinner was the tastiest he ever had—stuffed sandwiches and fried chicken and sweet rolled omelets, cabbage balls stuffed with diced and stewed vegetables, funny mushrooms with melted cheese pooled in the middle. Goro had cups of juice and tea and water that fizzed like soda. There were all kinds of cookies for dessert: shortbread and chocolate chip and oatmeal, cookies with jam or honey in the middle, cookies dusted with powdered sugar or cinnamon.

(The officer liked those the most, Goro couldn’t help but notice.)

When it was all done and the containers were packed away, Goro finally went back to the bedroom. He pushed out Mama’s boxes one by one, boxes filled with dresses and shoes and makeup and jewelry, a box filled with books and albums and a few of the CDs she liked to listen to the most, the pretty white dress folded carefully on the top.

He and Mama didn’t have much, but that had always been okay: they had each other. They were all they needed.

“I want you to have these, Miss Mako,” Goro said, tapping the boxes with Mama’s dresses in it, the fancy ones she had to wear to work, the expensive ones.

Miss Mako barely took a peek inside before saying, “Goro? Are you sure? You don’t want to—to keep them yourself?”

“Mama would want someone to wear them.” He was sure she would. Mama always said clothes were happiest when being worn. “If you don’t want them, you can—can sell them. I just think you’ll know what’s better for them than I do.”

“I, well…” She traded looks with the officer, who shrugged his shoulders.

“There was no will,” was all he said.

“… Right,” Miss Mako said. “I’ll—I’ll treasure them, Goro. Always.”

“Good,” he said, then indicated the other, solitary box. “Can you keep this one for me? When—when I’m old enough, I’ll come back for it. I promise.”

She took a bit longer looking through that one, reading the names of the books and flipping through some of the albums. Goro had flipped through some of them, too, desperate to remember something about his time with Mama other than her laugh or the fluffiness of her pancakes or how her hair shone in the light streaming in the window. Goro had taken out a lot of pictures of a bald man in funny sunglasses, unsure of where he fit in the scheme of Mama’s photos.

(Though, right after, she had lots of pictures of Goro as a baby, and the man disappeared.)

Miss Mako closed the box, setting it off to the side with Mama’s things. “I’ll take good care of it, I promise,” she said. “It’ll be here waiting for you whenever you’re ready for it.”

“Good,” he said again, and nodded for good measure.

He couldn’t help but look around at the boxes all around him: boxes of the things he couldn’t take with him, boxes of things he wouldn’t need anymore, his whole life up until that day packed neatly away. His home, gradually becoming empty, as if he and Mama never lived there.

Goro latched onto Miss Mako, buried his face in her shoulder, and cried.

 _I don’t want to leave,_ he thought. It was his home. Whenever he pictured it in that other universe, it was always the same: the living room with the ratty couch and the old, tiny TV on the floor; the bedroom, with their futons pressed up against the wall; the kitchen, with the fridge Mama tacked all his pictures and tests on, no matter how bad they were.

All of that was gone, now, packed or thrown away. The landlady would keep what furniture she wanted or throw it away, and he didn’t like that thought one bit. It was his and Mama’s house. No one else should live there.

But Mama was gone, and Goro couldn’t stay.

“I don’t want to go,” he whispered into Miss Mako’s shoulder.

“I know, sweetie,” she said, hugging him back.

“I don’t care if it’s an adventure,” he said, quoting some well-meaning man with a funny smile that never quite reached his eyes. “I want to stay. I want to be able to visit Mama whenever I want. I want to—”

He wanted everything back. He wanted a do-over. He didn’t care if that meant another ten-thousand years stuck in some other universe, if it meant Mama was alive when he finally went home again. He didn’t care if it meant another ten-thousand years of drifting aimlessly through space.

But he couldn’t say any of it. He just cried harder.

The officer offered to take the boxes out to his car, and Miss Mako agreed, still rubbing circles into Goro’s back. She whispered that she understood in his ear, the she wanted him to stay, that she hadn’t wanted to lose Mama either, that she couldn’t do anything more for him, and it hurt her not to.

Goro didn’t know how long they sat there, clinging to each other and crying, before the officer was back. They went through the rest of the boxes, stacked them all neatly by the entrance. Goro was afraid to show off his one lone box of things he would bring to the orphanage, but the officer frowned at it. “That’s all you have?”

“Yeah,” Goro said. He’d outgrown some of his clothes the week before he was taken, and Mama hadn’t gotten around to buying him any more—or letting the ones he had out, like she did with some of her own. Akira had only shown him how to put clothes together, not to take them apart, and Goro didn’t have the time to figure it out on his own.

He was leaving tomorrow.

“I see,” said the officer.

“We’re poor,” Goro said, by way of an excuse. Mama and Prim and Akira—they’d all shown him that he didn’t need things to be happy. “Mama spent most of her money on bills. I know that. Me crying wouldn’t change any of that.”

Although he wanted new things, too—toys and clothes and books, school supplies that weren’t the castoffs of every tenant in the building—and tasty food on the table, like tonight. And a Dad, so the other kids at school wouldn’t bully him anymore.

The officer took in the room one more time: the futons folded up in the corner; the empty closet with its door hanging open, a dozen hangers in a crowded jumble on the bar; the lone box. No place for a desk—Goro did his homework at the table waiting for Mama to get home—and certainly no place for a child to sleep if his mother was bringing home clients—

Goro froze at the thought. Mama had never called them clients, he was sure—but doubt wriggled in. Maybe he’d overheard one of them calling himself that. Maybe someone in town had said it. All Goro knew was that Mama needed to look pretty for them, though he’d always wondered why Akira looked sad whenever he brought it up. Mama’s work wasn’t bad, he’d always thought. Mama got paid to make friends.

But not paid enough.

The officer sighed, scrubbing at his face. He ruffled Goro’s hair, promising to be over nice and early, so he should get to bed. It was late, so Goro agreed, and saw them both off with more hugs at the door.

When they were gone, the apartment felt lonelier. Emptier, even with all the boxes stacked around him. A hush settled in, as if the whole building was holding its breath, waiting for the next tenant to move in, as if Goro was already gone.

He took the phone with him to the bedroom. He took a bath and brushed his teeth and changed into his pajamas and spread out his futon, and only then did he turn around and acknowledge the plush toy sitting behind his box: a chubby brown sparrow with a long, red scarf wrapped around its neck. Glyphs in Ra Cielan script spelled out his name on one end in gold thread; careful kanji the same on the other. A tattered scrap of paper was tied in a knot around the scarf; when he undid it, only faded, illegible ink greeted him.

It was still soft. When he buried his face in it, he smelled bananas and cranberries and sandalwood incense; green grass and the sharp smell of the sun on a pile of rocks; a dingy, crowded city; the wide open blue sky, scudded with clouds.

It was warm, too, as warm as the people who made it. As warm as his Mama used to be; as warm as the god at the center of the universe.

Goro fell into bed, dragging the covers up around him, the phone by his pillow. It was late; he shouldn’t call Akira—Ren, he reminded himself. Ren would be in bed by now, too. His Mama wouldn’t want him up late on the phone.

But tomorrow was going to be early. Goro wouldn’t have the chance to talk to him before he left, and Ren would have school, and Goro doubted that the orphanage would have a phone he could use. It had to be tonight.

He dialed, heart hammering away in his chest until it felt like all the tasty food he’d eaten was squirming around in his stomach. The phone rang and rang; he squeezed the plush doll tighter.

“Hello, Amamiya residence,” said someone on the other end, and Goro jumped.

“Ah! Um—” What should he say? He shouldn’t ask for Ren. It was late. Ren would be in bed, asleep, like Goro should be. Like Ren’s Mama would tell him to be. “Um, I’m sorry—I—”

“Oh, you’re Ren’s classmate!” she said, and he nodded, even though she couldn’t see. “It’s awfully late, dear. Can’t this wait until morning?”

“It can’t,” he said. “I, um—I lied. I’m not Ren’s classmate. I’m sorry.”

“Is that so?” she said. “How did you get our number, then?”

There were a couple of explanations Goro thought he could use: he dialed the wrong number; someone at school gave it to him. Anything but the truth, but he didn’t want to lie. Not anymore. “Um, promise not to laugh?”

“Cross my heart.”

“I heard it in a dream,” he confided. There was no laughter on the other end, so he went on: “I met this nice boy. We were friends. He was the first friend I ever had, even though I didn’t want to be his friend and we fought all the time at first. Even though there wasn’t anything about me to like, he was my friend.”

“Akira,” she guessed.

“Yeah.” He wondered what she was thinking. He wondered how crazy he sounded. “And I—they sound really similar, Ren and Akira, and I—I liked talking to him. The other day. On the phone. And, um—he said we could be friends, too. Like me and Akira were.”

Ren’s Mama sighed. “That boy, honestly.”

“We can’t be friends?”

“I—no, that’s not it.” Now she sounded irritated. He must have done something wrong. “It’s only—you’ve never met before, have you? It’s hard to be friends with someone over the phone, isn’t it?”

“It’s not.” Akira had Yuuki and the robot guy. Akira had made friends plenty easily even with a wall in his way, even when the other person couldn’t talk to him. If Akira could do it, so could Goro. “Or, um, I don’t think it is. If we can talk, we can be friends, can’t we?”

Silence. Ren’s Mama mulling it over, thinking and thinking. Ren was a troublemaker before he was taken; he had to have caused his Mama nothing but worry.

And now Goro was causing her trouble, too.

“Oh,” she groaned, talking to herself. “That boy. He has no friends of his own, but—a friendship? Over the phone? Like—like a penpal? Do kids these days know about those?”

“I know about penpals,” Goro offered. They’d written letters to kids across the country in school one day. Goro wasn’t sure if he was supposed to expect a reply, but the others kids got one.

“But you—you don’t mind that you’ll never see each other? That you can’t play together?”

Of course Goro wanted to. He and Prim played all the games they could think of, before Goro left. Akira and Prim’s Daddy had joined in, and it was the most fun Goro ever had. He wanted more fun days like those, but— “I can wait,” he told her. “Maybe one day we’ll see each other, and we can play then. For now, I just—before I leave, I just—”

Wanted to know he had a friend waiting to hear from him, someone he could talk to. Someone who would one day be Akira, who understood everything. Someone Goro wouldn’t have to lie to.

“Leave?”

“Yeah, I’m leaving.” To a place where there were other kids like him: unwanted kids; orphaned kids; kids whose parents couldn’t take care of them or didn’t want to. Miss Mako said they’d all be like him, and that he couldn’t hold it against them if they were angry. Anyone who wasn’t wanted got angry.

Goro knew how that felt. He’d been angry for five-thousand years.

“My Mama died, and I don’t have anyone else to take care of me, so I’m leaving,” Goro explained. “That’s why I wanted to know if me and Ren could still be friends. It won’t be so bad if I’ve got a friend, right?”

“I—oh…”

Goro’s heart lurched. She was going to say no. She was going to tell him that she couldn’t trust a strange child with her son, even if they only ever talked on the phone. Would telling her that he didn’t have the money to go visit help, or make it worse?

What could he say, to make her say—

“Fine,” she sighed. “It’s—it’s fine. You and Ren can still be friends—um, what was your name, dear?”

“Goro,” Goro said. “Goro Akechi.”

“Goro,” she said. “Yes, you and Ren can still be friends. Heaven knows he needs one. And—and you need one too, don’t you? I can’t just—it’d be too cruel, to say no.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault, dear. No matter what, you remember that, understand? None of this is your fault. Say it for me.”

“It’s not my fault,” he said, wondering why she was making him say so. A lot of things were his fault, like everything that happened to Akira.

Mama dying, though—whose fault was that?

“That’s right, it’s not,” Ren’s Mama said. “So—you can call whenever you need to. Ren’s usually around. Now—now get to bed, understand?”

“Yes,” he said. It was like Mama was right there, just on the other side of the phone, telling him to go to bed. “I will. Good night, Ren’s Mama.”

“I—” she sighed again. “Yes. Good night, Goro.”

She hung up. Goro listened to the buzz of static over the line, sure that any minute she would call him back to say that she changed her mind, that his talk about Mama was the only reason she said yes in the first place. But the line buzzed, and the light coming in through the window flickered as cars drove by, and the doll in his arms was still soft, still warm.

Goro was asleep before he knew it.

* * *

He woke to his alarm, the thin, gray light of the coming dawn glowing in his window.

Another goddamn day. Another goddamn dream about the past. Mama’s funeral this time, and the talk with the officer. Goro still couldn’t remember his name, and didn’t want to.

He forced himself out of bed and went through his morning routine: a quick shower, a quicker meal, the meticulous application of a variety of cosmetics he wished he didn’t need. But no one cared for his freckles, or the bruises under his eyes, or his few acne scars—or any of the other scars at all—or for his soured, curdled-milk complexion. He needed more sun and less make-ready meals. He wished he had the time for actual cooking, or for catching up on his homework, or just to catch up on sleep.

When he was done, he stared in the mirror, so close his breath fogged up the glass. No spot missed, no section untouched. He looked perfectly healthy.

And that was all anyone would ever see, if he had his way. If Akira didn’t bumble into a conversation and make some remark about the split ends in his hair, or how his lips were beginning to chap, or how he’d missed a spot shaving.

Goro shivered. Akira would never be so crass, he thought. Akira would have the decency to pull him aside and mention it then, with that maddening, caring look in his eye, as if Goro was still seven.

Goro had not been seven for a long time. He was almost at the point of forgetting Akira’s face.

(When he did, what would he have left?)

His alarm buzzed again. The light in his window was stronger, now, and he could hear the beginning of traffic kicking up out on the street. Cars whizzing by, doors slamming shut down the hall; everything echoed in his cheap, tiny apartment.

But it reminded him of home, and Mama, and Akira. That was all he needed.

That was all he ever needed.


	6. The Moon, Rank 3

Hirotaka was around more often after the Kamoshida incident—in the mornings, in the afternoons after school, on the weekends—but he, like Yuuki, haunted the apartment like a ghost, puttering between his laptop parked on the table in front of the TV, the bathroom, the kitchen, and hovering in Yuuki’s doorway.

Like today. Madarame’s press conference cut off shortly, but it was enough: the old man was apologizing, admitting to years of maltreatment and abuse and plagiarism. Yuuki had been lucky enough to snag one of the calling cards taped all over the museum before they all got taken down, and it was tacked up on his wall, right next to Kamoshida’s.

(The logo was better. The Phantom Thieves finally had an artist on their side. Yuuki smothered down another fit of jealousy—he wasn’t a good artist, not like some of his classmates. He could never do the Phantom Thieves justice.)

“Yuuki,” Hirotaka said, “was that—”

“Madarame,” Yuuki said, although his dad had to know. He’d complained just last week about his boss boasting about getting into the exhibit, and Madarame’s face was just about everywhere. It was hard not to recognize the guy. It was also hard to keep the grin from his face. “They did it again! Did—did you see it? Tell me you saw it! People have to start believing in them now, right?”

“Right,” Hirotaka said, shifting on his feet—though Yuuki barely caught it, too busy looking between his phone and laptop. Should he post a congratulatory message on the Phan-site first, or should he shoot one to Amamiya first?

Amamiya was likely to deny involvement with the Phantom Thieves—Yuuki understood why, but he could keep a secret better than Sakamoto could—just like he had last time, after Yuuki sent that Nakanohara guy his way. Maybe he could wait on that one.

“Yuuki,” his dad said, as Yuuki turned back to his laptop. Comments on the site were already pouring in, although half of them were trolls looking for attention, burying genuine comments under their pandering trash. “Yuuki, I—”

“Can I make this post first?” Yuuki said. He had to do it now, while everyone was still hyped by the conference. Madarame, a plagiarist! Who would have guessed?

“I—I suppose so, if it doesn’t take too long.”

“It won’t,” he assured him, and barely heard the creak of the floor as his dad wandered off, too busy typing, backspacing, typing again. Everything he thought of to say didn’t encompass how he felt, at all. These were the Phantom Thieves; there was no question that they could pull off stealing Madarame’s—

Yuuki paused. He looked up at the calling cards. **We will steal your twisted desires** , they read. **We will change your heart.**

Which, well. Wasn’t exactly in the realm of realistic. He could get why people didn’t believe them—but those changes of hearts worked, didn’t they? They did the job when nothing else worked, and the calling cards, too, were simple and straightforward.

But were they stealing Madarame’s heart or his desires? What had they taken from Kamoshida, to make him bow down before the whole school and admit to being an abusive jackass? How could he have gone from arrogant and untouchable to being ready to die to atone for his sins?

… Did it really matter?

It didn’t, he decided. The wording didn’t matter, either.

He typed up a post, pinned it to the top of the forum like Kamoshida’s, and got to work. The trolls were out in force today, and for every post Yuuki deleted, two or three more popped up in its place. There were tons of people using the site, but no one would know it if he let these jerks run amok—

“Yuuki?” said someone at his door. “How long did you say it was going to take?”

“I’m not done yet,” he said. “Can it wait?”

There was no response. That suited Yuuki just fine; _now_ there were comments asking if there was some way to donate money to the Thieves’ cause—he’d have to look into that, and into whether or not they wanted donations being sent their way—because they were out there, doing far more work than the police did, and surely righteous thieves would put their money to better use.

Yuuki thought of Sakamoto’s loud mouth declaring how badly he wanted a beef bowl and snorted.

At some point during it all, he reached for his nearly-empty water bottle and found it full. He only wondered about it for a handful of seconds before diving back in to the site.

Someone had to wade through all the garbage so Amamiya and his Thieves could take care of doing the actual work. Someone had to find them new targets so they didn’t wander the city and accidentally out themselves. Someone had to make sure that the world knew the Thieves were just, and real, and that this string of heart changes wasn’t a coincidence.

That someone just happened to be Yuuki. That was all.

* * *

“God, what the hell,” Ryuji muttered as they convened in one of the many hallways of the TV studio. The place was like a maze; Akira had spent ten minutes trying to find the bathroom after lunch. “What are we, gophers?”

“At least you’re not getting hit on by every intern who thinks he’s the next Haruma Miura,” Ann complained, leaning against a wall. “Are they even in the right business for that?”

“Oh, who cares,” Ryuji said. “I’d take getting hit on if it means I don’t hafta deal with any more of those cables. I gotta hit the gym again…”

“It’s almost over,” Akira said.

“We should do something after!” Ann exclaimed, eager as ever to change the subject. “We’re all the way in Asakusa! I bet Akira here wants to tour a bit, doesn’t he?”

“Does he, now,” Akira said, sipping at his water bottle. He’d grabbed the last one out of the cooler, and was enjoying the look on Ryuji’s face as he sipped at it, slowly, letting condensation drip over his hands. Ryuji was not the type of person who sipped and savored; he guzzled and wolfed, barely tasting a thing, and had gone through three bottles in the first half of the day before the rest of the students cut him off.

Akira had taken note of Yuuki, standing far off to the side, seemingly looking over a bulletin board while the other boys fought over the water—though it could have been exhaustion. The boy was not sleeping like he’d promised.

“Aw, come on! It’s Asakusa!” Ann wheedled. “When’s the next time you’re gonna be here, huh?”

“Tomorrow,” Ryuji grumbled.

“And it’ll be the _last day_ ,” she pushed. “Do you really want to just sit around, fake laughing at whatever they tell you to before going home? Let’s have some fun!”

“Oh!” Morgana said, popping up to perch on Akira’s shoulder, “I wanna go to that pancake-looking place! That looks like fun!”

“Oh, Dome Town! Dude, they’ve got some crazy rides in there!”

“I don’t like amusement parks,” Akira said, thinking of a certain one that had brainwashed his friends into never wanting to leave. Pulling them away from it had been painful.

“What? Dude, how can you not like amusement parks? They’re the shit!”

Akira shook his head. He took his time screwing the cap back on the bottle. “You guys can take Morgana and go, if you want. But I won’t.”

“Really?” said a voice, coming around the corner. “That’s a shame. An amusement park changed my life once; you really should give it a try.”

Ryuji spun around, nearly tripping over his feet. From around the corner came a boy in an olive-green jacket, a bulky gray briefcase in one hand. His smile was fake, though Akira saw the twitch as he took in the group and said, “Forgive me for eavesdropping. I can never tell when the right time to pass by is. No harm done, I’m sure.”

“Uh, yeah,” Ryuji started to say, “it was pretty—”

“None taken,” Akira said. With his glasses on, maybe Goro wouldn’t recognize him—although he must have a clue, judging by how often his roving gaze stopped on him. Akira pushed them up a bit higher and asked, “What makes you think they’re so life-changing?”

“I met a dear friend of mine at an amusement park,” Goro said. “It was one of those childhood friendships—we bonded in an instant. Though I’ve never seen her since, I still think back to that day fondly. You should give it a try. I recommend the bath-salt throwing game, or the hedge maze.”

“Are the prizes any good?”

“Dude,” Ryuji said, giving him a look. “You can’t be serious.”

“For kids our age… no, they wouldn’t be,” Goro said, ignoring Ryuji and his indignant, _Hey!_ “You can’t limit memories to mere physical objects, after all. Where would the fun be?”

“I dunno,” Ann said. “I’ve always wanted to win one of those huge teddy bears!”

“Where would you even put one?” Ryuji grumbled.

“It’s the thought of winning one, not the actual prize, Ryuji!”

Goro chuckled. Ryuji somehow managed to become redder in the face as he checked his watch and gave a slight bow. “It seems I’m running late. I do hope you’ll give it some consideration. If anything, it may just become a bright spot in this dreary field trip of yours. If not… I suppose you can always go out for pancakes. The ones in Dome Town are divine.”

He waved goodbye. Ann returned it with a bit too much enthusiasm, then rounded on Ryuji as soon as he was out of earshot. Ryuji loudly complained about the nosiness of celebrities, and how the pretty-boy detective should have just minded his own business. Akira’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Hey,” Morgana said, safely ensconced in Akira’s bag. “Do you think Lady Ann would… like one of those bears? The big ones?”

“Maybe,” Akira said, tugging out his phone.

Goro: **Before you ask, I’m very busy at the moment.**

Akira: **Doing what, exactly?**

“You always text this guy,” Morgana said, reading over his shoulder. “Do you two really know each other?”

Akira shoved his phone in his pocket before the other two overheard and tried something drastic, like reading all of his texts. What would they think of the conversations between him and Goro? How insane would it make them look?

(Why did he care?)

“We do,” he said, “but he’s busy. Entrance exams, work, all that good stuff. I’d say he’s busier than I am.”

“Dude, no way anybody’s busier’n you,” Ryuji snorted, slinging an arm around his neck and knocking Morgana off his perch. Ann caught him. “You’ve got, what? Three part-time jobs? Plus, uh, what we do, and school shit, and the cafe—”

“I like keeping busy.”

“I think if anyone here needs a break, it’s you, mister.” Ann poked him in the ribs. “So… to Dome Town!”

Ryuji cheered along and dragged him off. Akira cast one look behind him, at the place where Goro had stood for a good minute, reminiscing about the world’s strangest amusement park. The game prizes tended to be nothing more than the attention of the park’s mascot, but Goro had been happy with that—and with his newfound friend as they raced from one game to the next and back again.

Much later, after a series of rides that left Morgana looking queasy, and a series of games that left all of them nearly broke but with a sizable pile of stuffed toys, Akira realized that none of the eateries in the park sold pancakes.

Something, he thought, was very wrong with Goro.

* * *

The TV studio, with all its lights centered onstage and with hundreds of pounds of cables twisting underfoot, was like a death trap. The co-host of the show waded through the mess with a dogged determination, eyeing each student the way Ryuji sometimes looked at the vending machines: wondering which one was worth his time and money—and which ones simply tasted the best, despite their looks.

Maybe that was why she singled out Akira, with the bedhead he hadn’t combed out that morning and his uniform shirt wrinkled from the crush of the commute.

“How about you, young man? What do you think about the Phantom Thieves?”

Akira looked back to the stage, where Goro sat. His prim posture had given way to something resembling excitement: it glittered in his eyes, though it was careful and controlled.

 **There’s a lot we don’t know about each other anymore** , Goro had sent one day, sometime Before. Akira suspected he wasn’t aware of sending it. He didn’t act like it. **Do you ever think about the old days, when we could fight and agree to disagree? Do you ever think, What would have happened if I kept fighting? What would have happened if I simply folded from the beginning?**

**What would have happened if—**

“They do more than the police,” Akira said, his fellow students gasping. It was Goro Akechi he was disagreeing with, not some random celebrity, didn’t he know that?

But Goro would always be Goro to Akira. Goro would always be that small child, used and abused and left behind, crying for his Mama from his very soul.

Goro chuckled as the co-host gave a gasp. “Now, now,” he said, with a practiced, plastic smile. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions. These are merely mine and his.”

She picked her way back to the stage; Akira clapped along when they were cued to, eyes glued to Goro. He looked so much the same—and so much different, too, like the wear of years was slowly grinding him down into dust.

Akira sat there for a long time after recording was over, listening to the bustle of students and interns and studio staff around him. He only got up when Ryuji did, groaning about having to put away his chair before dashing off to the bathroom.

“Gross,” Ann said. “If you’re gonna wait for him, I’ll just go ahead. You want anything to drink?”

“Nah,” Akira said, shaking his water bottle at her. It was still mostly full. He’d been too nervous to drink it, after hearing that Goro was the guest star of their recording demonstration.

“Alright,” she said, heading out.

Morgana was heavy on his shoulder. He should have asked her to take him.

As he waited for Ryuji, the studio cleared out even further. A handful of students milled about, hoping to get some celebrity’s autograph or asking about the studio work itself. Yuuki was once again glued to the bulletin board from the day before, staring at it absently.

Which was… odd. He’d wanted to come here, hoping to get some gossip, right? Why was he just standing there?

Akira went to ask him—

“So, it was you,” Goro said, materializing at his side.

Akira grunted. He looked from him to Yuuki and back again. Surely Yuuki could wait a little while? Maybe that was how he did reconnaissance? By simply blending into the background and listening?

It was a good tactic, Akira thought, before shifting all of his attention to Goro.

“Let me guess: suddenly you’re the one who’s too busy?” Goro asked.

“Just surprised, that’s all,” Akira said. “i-chei-ren, ih=yu-tey;”

“Likewise, I suppose,” was the response. Then he sighed. “No, it—it is good to see you, too, Akira. Let me just say that I was beginning to think you’d never—well…”

Return. Ten years was an awful long time to wait, with no guarantee of what the future would bring. “Was it hard? Waiting for so long?”

“Very,” Goro said. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

Morgana grumbled noiselessly in his bag. “Sure,” Akira said, adjusting it, hoping no one noticed how the cat squirmed—and that no one noticed the Detective Prince currently giving Akira’s bedhead a pensive look. Akira jammed a hand through it. “How about some lunch? We can catch up a bit. If you’re not still super busy, Mr. Detective.”

Goro brushed off his jacket. “I do have some time before my next appointment. But, are you sure you want to be seen with me? I’d think someone in your position would be trying to lay a bit lower.”

“I’m on probation, not in jail.” Though with the way his classmates acted, one could think it was the same thing. “Apparently I stabbed someone. I think a detective might be able to prove it if I do it again, you see.”

“Dangerous, aren’t you,” Goro said, with another chuckle. He knew exactly how dangerous Akira had been—for him and his former plans of genocide, anyway. He didn’t know how dangerous Akira was, right at that moment, or so Akira hoped.

The pancake comment—it could have been Goro’s sweet tooth acting up again, if he still had a sweet tooth. Akira hoped it was the sweet tooth. “Oh, I’m lethal,” Akira said. Ryuji appeared in the doorway, did a double-take at the sight of Akira with Goro Akechi, and stopped, gaping. Morgana wriggled in his bag. “I’ll be right back. Shouldn’t take long.”

“Of course,” Goro said, tugging out his phone to… do something. For all Akira knew, he was checking his email.

“Dude,” Ryuji said, once Akira was close. “Dude, why’s he—”

“Because we’re friends.”

Ryuji stopped again, struggling to process that. “But—he said—”

“Not everyone has to think the Phantom Thieves are great, Ryuji,” Akira said, checking his pockets for his phone and wallet. Keeping the bag would be ideal, but Morgana wouldn’t have any way to transfer to Ryuji’s without being seen. “Take Morgana for me? We’re probably going to debate the morals of changing hearts. It might take a while. I’ll pick up some good tuna on the way home.”

Ryuji accepted his bag, peering in at Morgana, quiet as a mouse. “Debate the… Dude, there’s nothing _to_ debate—”

“I’ll owe you a beef bowl.”

Ryuji’s eyes lit up for a brief second. Then he scowled. “Effin’—fine, man. I’ll take him. But you owe me an explanation _and_ a beef bowl, got that?”

“I want sushi!” Morgana added.

“We’ll see,” Akira said. He tapped Ryuji on the arm, since both of his hands were full with a bag of wriggling cat. “Thanks, man.”

Ryuji looked like he wanted to protest, but bit it back. “Yeah, no prob.”

The expression hurt. Akira wanted nothing more than to cancel everything, just to erase it—but Ryuji knew better than to try and change his mind. He also knew that he wasn’t the only one in Akira’s ever-increasing social circle. They couldn’t hang out all the time.

Or, maybe it was just because it was Goro and his opposition to the Phantom Thieves.

All Akira could do was flash him a smile. He returned it tenfold on instinct.

Goro was fending off some brave classmates when Akira wandered back over; he was forced to wait as Goro signed several autographs, smiled stiffly for a few dozen selfies, and attempted to extricate himself by sidling along the wall with his briefcase as a barrier. It wasn’t working.

“Goro,” Akira said, silencing all the girls at once. They turned to stare at him—some angry, some in disbelief, some with fear—clutching their autograph books and schoolbags.

“Akira,” Goro said, as one of the girls opened her mouth to argue his presence. “iuz iyon-du iz-syou-chee aru-tes?”

“Always. Shall we?”

Another plastic smile with too many teeth. “Of course. You’ll have to forgive me, everyone. It’s, ah—”

“Police business,” Akira offered. “Goro wanted my opinion on police ethics in small country towns. Isn’t that right, Mr. Detective?”

“Yes! Yes, completely so. So, if you will excuse us—it was wonderful to meet you all, truly—”

Goro kept smiling as they sped down the hall, out of the studio, past the entrance—past Ann, who looked up from her phone long enough to gape at Goro and Akira, walking side by side—and all the way to the station, where they were forced to stop and wait for a train.

And he kept smiling as they boarded, finding enough standing room to barely rub elbows. The briefcase knocked into Akira’s knees. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

He ignored it, taking in Goro: the same honey-brown hair, the same wine-red eyes. He found himself thinking that it was awfully kind of Neptool’s scientists to give Goro a body that matched his own so well, though even they couldn’t have predicted Goro’s fine cheekbones or his long lashes or the slight bump on his nose from a badly healed break.

Goro caught him staring. He raised a brow. Akira shook his head; there was nothing he wanted to say with so many people around. Someone would take it the wrong way.

Goro must have caught onto that, as once they reached Shibuya he directed them onto a different train. This one was even more crowded, and the air conditioning worked overtime to compensate; despite that, Akira was sweating once they arrived in Kichijoji, his uniform shirt clammy. Goro had to be roasting in his jacket. Even for early summer, it was hot in the city.

The bar Goro led him to was dimly lit, underground, and ice-cold. Jazz played over speakers in the walls; a small stage in the corner promised live music, though it was dark so early in the afternoon.

“I come here often, these days,” Goro said as they sat down. He fiddled with his gloves; Akira debated whether to take his glasses off or leave them on, and set them on the table after a few seconds.

Goro deserved to see him, all of him, exactly as he was.

“And here I was, thinking you were done with music for the rest of your life,” Akira said.

“Oh, not quite.” Goro signaled the bartender, an older looking man who nodded without having to be told a thing. “It’s… hard, avoiding it completely. What I can tell you is that no one ever Sang a jazz-themed ClassDrive Program or Hymn. I’m afraid I’ve come to enjoy it.”

Akira shut his eyes. Soft instrumentals and a crooning voice slid through his ears, as smooth and silky as the fine cloth his emperor’s robes had been made of. It certainly was different from the jarring pleas and frantic pace of some of the Songs Akira had heard. “I can see why.”

They soaked it in for a few minutes. Goro was still fiddling with his gloves, and after what Akira assumed was an intense internal debate, he took them off and placed them on the table, next to Akira’s glasses.

“I should meet you, shouldn’t I?” Goro said, by way of explanation. “One pretense for another.”

“Meeting me would be _not_ smiling like someone’s stabbing you and you’re supposed to be happy about it,” Akira said. The bartender came over, placed down a couple of vibrant drinks, and left. Goro reached for one; his hands were covered in scars and callouses, bruises and healing burns.

Akira frowned.

Goro said, “I have to take a number of self-defense lessons, put in hours at the shooting range—”

“They let you _shoot_?”

“On the off chance I have to defend myself during a case, yes.” Though Goro didn’t look pleased about it. He examined one in the light. “It looks much worse than it is, I assure you, and I’m still too young to officially carry a gun legally, extenuating circumstances aside.”

“Like what?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t been told.” Another fake smile. “You don’t need to worry. Even Naoto Shirogane knew how to shoot, Akira. It’s simply something I have to learn.”

Akira glared at his drink. That was true, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

He did like the drink, though. Though it was fruity, it packed enough zest to keep him going back for more.

“You know, I’ve spent some time thinking, and,” Goro said, during a lull in the music, “I realized you must have two sets of childhood memories now. I… can’t imagine how hard that is to deal with.”

“You mean aside from living in constant fear you’re going to screw up by referring to something that never happened?” Akira supposed not. The child Goro had been needed someone to cling to after his mother’s death, and that person just happened to be Akira—and Akira’s former self, Ren. Goro had grown up with Ren at his side.

But Akira—Akira had and hadn’t. Goro was there but he wasn’t, not in truth. He was a voice over the phone that Akira had always wanted to hear from—just like Yuuki.

Was he really that lonely?

“No, not really,” Akira said. In the end it wasn’t so different. He just had someone to talk to about his day-to-day life, someone who cared and listened and someone to care and listen to in return. Nothing had actually changed.

Not until his return.

“Ah,” Goro said. “Well, I suppose that makes one of us.”

“You did?”

“I was eight, almost, and my mother was dead.” He rubbed at a finger. “You know how adults tell that to children? ‘They were taken. They’re gone now.’ That’s what they said to me. They said she was gone. How else was I supposed to understand that?”

“I don’t know.”

“But, well, I think it didn’t matter in the end. There were—psychologists. Teams of them, and social workers. Everyone said I was trying to… rationalize it, the way adults do. They said that I was trying to escape the guilt of not being able to save my mother by—by making up a story that I was taken away, too.”

“fuai-ro-fan-nz;”

“reth-i;”

He didn’t seem to like it. Akira wouldn’t. Akira would have punched every single one of those so-called psychologists if they’d dared to tell him a thing like that; he let Goro have a few minutes to calm down, needing a few minutes himself. His hands itched for something to hold, and he grasped at a chunk of hair, letting his elbow rest on the table.

Eventually Goro shook his head; tension drained out of his face and shoulders. Akira wasn’t aware of how tense he was, too, until he found himself relaxing.

Akira said, “It shouldn’t have happened.”

“I don’t know how it happened,” Goro said. “But—I know I thought the same, back then. It shouldn’t have happened. She was—” He glanced at the bartender, pretending to ignore them by polishing glasses. Surely he’d go around spreading the rumor that the Detective Prince Akechi was telling tall tales in his club. Half of Japan would believe him.

“I know.” She was alive and well in some other universe. One that didn’t have Goro in it.

“I miss her, Akira.”

“I know.”

It wasn’t quite as deep as Goro’s loss. Yuuki was still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found and loved, and Akira felt his absence like a hole through his heart—one that Arsene and the rest of his Personas were shielding him from.

 _ **What a smart Master we’ve got**_ , purred Nekomata.

 _ **Should we not anymore?**_ asked Sudama, its voice quivering with fear.

Akira thought of that pervasive loneliness upon his return. His parents were there, but he couldn’t speak to them. Not as himself. Coming to Tokyo was freeing, in that sense. No one here knew the old him. He didn’t even know the streets or the subway lines.

Which meant no one would bat an eye if he spent his days wandering the city, looking for one boy out of millions. He’d be just another tourist gawking at Tokyo Tower or the Skytree. He’d be just another teenager window shopping in Harajuku or getting ramen in Ogikubo.

Even if he was supposed to be saving the abused and powerless.

 _It’s alright_ , he told them. _You give me purpose, too._

Because otherwise that loneliness would eat him alive.

“I’m sure you do,” Goro said, after taking a lengthy sip of his drink. “You lost something, too.”

Akira shook his head. “I just haven’t found him yet. It’s not like—”

 _It’s not like he’s dead_ , Akira almost said. But… that could have been true. He could be dead. He could have died in any number of accidents since the start of the school year. He could have died last year, before Akira returned.

“I can look into it a bit, if you’d like.”

Akira forced himself to breathe. Yuuki wasn’t dead. Yuuki couldn’t be dead. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“I’ve nothing better to do.” Goro shrugged. In the mellow light his eyes were almost black, dark and bottomless with long-held grief. “Although I’m an intern and I’ve solved plenty of cases myself, I’m only brought in these days when someone wants an outside opinion. Or some coffee.”

“Goro…”

“Don’t,” Goro said, with a sudden viciousness. “No job is as glamorous as we make it out to be in our heads, Akira. I’ll work my way up the ladder, the same as everyone else.”

Akira thought of the tenaciousness he’d applied to going home. The plans he’d agreed with, the lives he’d taken, the world he’d almost destroyed for good. There was no doubt Goro could work up that ladder if he wanted to, but… “The right way?”

Goro’s voice dropped to a hiss. “Excuse me?”

“You know what I meant.”

Goro huffed, sitting back and attempting to look nonchalant. He tugged at his sleeves, trying to adjust gloves that weren’t there, and pursed his lips when he noticed the motion.

“Goro,” Akira pressed.

“If you follow all the rules, you’ll get nowhere in life,” Goro said. “You should know that better than anyone. Haven’t we both done exactly what was asked of us—”

“Goro,” Akira pressed again.

Goro sighed. He stared at his hands on his lap; Akira could imagine them balled into fists, ready to strike out against anything that got in his way. It was just the way Goro interacted with the world. “I can’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

Goro shook his head. He looked over to a wall covered in old jazz posters and blown-up vinyl covers; Akira followed his gaze to a poster with a woman in a bright red dress that clung to her every curve and slithered down her legs like water. “We were poor,” Goro said. “Mama tried her best, but it was never good enough. She tried to get out of the work she did. She tried to get a better, more respectable job. And every time she came back more despondent than before. I always wondered what was wrong with the world; Mama was more than capable of some of the work she was applying for. She was a secretary for years, but all it took was one man to ruin everything for her. She lost everything in one fell swoop, all because he couldn’t play by the rules. That’s how you get ahead in life, Akira. You find loopholes. You bribe who you have to. You take down everything and everyone that’s standing in your way through any means necessary. No one has the time to worry over legality.

“Like the Phantom Thieves. Do you think they worry over the morality, the _legality_ of their actions? They don’t. They use what means they have to expose criminals, even petty bullies and stalkers. And since those means are likely to be illegal, it’s my job to expose them in turn and reap what I can from it.”

“How do you know their methods are illegal?”

“Because these changes of heart are too convenient,” Goro said. Akira thought he would have said more if his phone hadn’t rung at that moment. Goro examined it and said, “And I’m afraid I have to get going. Duty calls.”

He gathered up his things, leaving his drink half-finished on the table. As he tugged his gloves on, Akira said, “At least tell me you’re taking care of yourself.”

Goro flashed him that bright, plastic smile. “Of course.”

He left a fistful of coins on a napkin. Akira counted them out—one hundred, five hundred, one thousand yen. Just enough for the pair of drinks, although the bartender kept the change.

“I keep a tab,” he told Akira. “That boy’ll come in, sit for hours by himself. ‘Tween you and me, I think he’s working too hard. Forgets how much his drinks are and pays too much or too little. Haven’t said anything to him about it yet, but it’s no bother to me or him.”

“Does he come here often?”

The bartender shrugged. “Sometimes he’s here every day. Sometimes I won’t see him for weeks. Was beginning to think he didn’t have anybody to hold onto. You see those types sometimes, even in places like this.”

He scrutinized Akira, with his messy hair and rumpled uniform shirt and the cat hair clinging to one shoulder. Then he said, “But I don’t think I gotta worry about him anymore. Do I?”

“I think you should, actually,” Akira said. It was Goro. He was likely to forget that he was human again, despite being back in his proper body for ten years, and that meant taking care of himself. “If we don’t, who will?”

“Ah,” said the bartender, with a small, secretive smile. “You got that right. Yeah, if we don’t… doesn’t look like anybody will.”

They traded nods.

Out on the street, Akira wondered who else worried for Goro. It couldn’t have been too many people. He hoped it was more than just him and the bartender.

He hoped, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

* * *

Yuuki was in the middle of overhearing a conversation about a particularly annoying anchorman when Sakamoto wandered over. He was glaring at the other side of the studio, where a crowd of girls stood around staring as—

Yuuki stared. Amamiya and Goro Akechi were leaving the studio, together, in sight of nearly a dozen people. All of the interns and studio staff went on doing their jobs, but the remaining Shujin students were staring, like he was. Like Sakamoto was.

… Like Amamiya’s cat was, poking his head out of Amamiya’s schoolbag.

“What—” Yuuki started to ask, but stopped halfway through.

Sakamoto shrugged. “Beats me. He said—” He glared harder at the hallway, the swinging doors, the flash of Akechi’s hair, and scuffed the floor with a shoe. “He said they were friends. Him, with—with Akechi!”

“Akechi?” Yuuki asked, as if he hadn’t just seen them leave. It was his mind playing tricks on him, he thought briefly. He’d been pulling too many all-nighters lately. “Are—are you sure?”

The cat meowed something sad and Sakamoto nodded. “It’s what he said, man. I don’t get it either.”

The group of girls was leaving now, their autographs clutched to their chests, their bags swinging from the crooks of their elbows. Yuuki hadn’t bothered to bring his; after the field trip was over, they were free to go home. Sakamoto hadn’t either.

Sakamoto groaned, running a hand through his hair. “God, this shit pisses me off. But it ain’t all bad, right? It’s Akechi. He’s gotta have some kinda—kinda intel. Probably.”

“Uh, maybe,” Yuuki said. If Akechi was really going to go around spilling police secrets to a nobody high school kid—even if that kid was Amamiya, who seemed to have his own gravitational field—then he didn’t deserve the job.

Yuuki kind of wished he would, so he’d get fired. But that would mean he’d have more time to spend with Amamiya, and that irked him, too.

He frowned. Why was he so irritated by the idea?

Sakamoto snorted. “Glad I’m not the only one. Dude’s got a stick up his ass. Can’t believe I got blown off for—for _that_.”

“ _That_ being Goro Akechi, Second Coming of the Detective Prince, famously handsome high school prodigy?”

Yuuki had been in the back of the audience, on the left side. He hadn’t had a clear view of Akechi’s face as he and Akira shortly debated the morality of the Phantom Thieves on live television, but he could find a dozen clips of it on YouCubed later. Just for reference.

Because—because—

“Akira ain’t gay, though,” Sakamoto said, “if that’s what you mean.”

Yuuki sighed. “You don’t have to be gay to be charmed by a pretty face, I guess. A lot of people are saying—”

“Excuse me,” interrupted a dour-faced older man, in a tone that suggested whatever he wanted wasn’t voluntary. “Shouldn’t you students have gone home by now? We have work to be doing.”

Sakamoto glared at him. Yuuki expected a blow-up; instead he just snagged Yuuki by the arm and tugged him out of the studio, down the elevator, out the entrance. The sun was harsh, the sky was a bright, burning blue, and the street was beginning to shimmer with heat.

Takamaki was waiting just outside the gate. She looked as confused as Yuuki felt.

“Hey, uh,” she said, “did you see—”

“Akira and that Akechi bastard? Yeah, I did. They were gonna keep debating, or something.”

“Uh,” Takamaki said, with a glance down the street, “right. Sure they were.”

“What, you don’t think so?”

Takamaki hummed. She crossed her arms, tilted her head, hummed some more. Morgana popped out of Amamiya’s bag to watch. “I don’t think so,” she finally said. “It didn’t seem like—like, they just met, right?”

Sakamoto took a deep breath and said, “Akira said they’re friends.”

“Huh.” She took another glance down the street. Yuuki attempted to tug his sleeve out of Sakamoto’s vice-like grip. Morgana meowed, something long and chittery that both Sakamoto and Takamaki paid earnest attention to.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sakamoto said, after he was done.

“It _is_ Akira we’re talking about.” Takamaki sighed. “He really does like to keep busy, doesn’t he? And, uh, why’s Mishima here?”

“’Cause we got kicked outta the studio, duh.”

“But why is he… here?”

People were staring. People were also whispering, pointing at their uniforms and turning away when Yuuki met their eyes. _Shujin students._

They may as well have been saying _lepers._

“Uh, ‘cause…” Sakamoto fought hard for an answer, but gave up before long. He shrugged. “I dunno. ‘Cause. Does a guy need a reason?”

“You’re impossible,” Takamaki said, at the same time the cat meowed something that sounded like a sigh.

“That’s why you’re still clinging to my sleeve?” Yuuki asked. “Just ‘cause?”

Sakamoto grinned. Morgana leaped free of the bag, landing neatly in Takamaki’s arms as he wrenched an arm up around Yuuki’s shoulders, tugging him down in a headlock. “C’mon, man, you can’t tell me you liked standin’ around in there. That place was boring as shit! Let’s go do something fun!”

The cat yowled. Yuuki almost didn’t hear it as Sakamoto started swinging him around, Yuuki clawing at his arm, trying to drag some of the weight off his neck so he could breathe. It didn’t work; Sakamoto had an arm like a yoke. Fear coiled in Yuuki’s gut.

It was baseless: Sakamoto wasn’t Kamoshida. But Sakamoto had a hot temper, one that flared up faster than it cooled down, and he was known to hold grudges.

(But he wasn’t known to hit. Yuuki knew that, somewhere deep, deep down in his psyche. He got angry and yelled but the only one he’d ever moved to strike was Kamoshida.

The thought didn’t help.)

“Yeah, no more Dome Town,” Takamaki said. “It didn’t even have pancakes. Has Akechi really been there?”

“Ugh, no, no more Akechi,” Sakamoto groaned. “His pretty-boy face pisses me off. Seriously. And—and that _attitude_ —”

Yuuki tapped at his arm, struggling for air. Sakamoto released him with a _whoops, my bad_. Yuuki gulped down air as the two Phantom Thieves plus one cat made plans, checking for his phone and wallet. If he had to go back into the studio because he dropped them somewhere as Sakamoto dragged him out…

But he hadn’t. Both were still in his pockets, and he gripped them. “Well, uh, I better get going,” he said, mind wandering to how many new posts he was going to have to delete, how many new troll accounts he was going to have to ban, and how many hours it was going to take.

“Yeah, Ann, we’ll see ya,” Sakamoto said, hiking Amamiya’s bag on his shoulder. Morgana said a farewell—Yuuki could think of it that way, if the waving tail was any indication—and ducked inside. Sakamoto clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, then made a face at how clammy it was.

“You don’t have to,” Yuuki told him, trying to shrug him off.

Sakamoto snorted. “Yeah, I do. If I don’t you’ll run off, and then I’ll be stuck with the cat here. Dude, at least ‘til we get to Akira’s place so I can drop the furball off.”

Morgana yowled, indignant. Yuuki didn’t blame him.

Yuuki wanted to argue. He wanted to say no. But this was Sakamoto, who had a grip as tight as Kamoshida, and who Yuuki had no doubt embarrassed by butting in to his and Amamiya’s plans to meet with a maid sometime last week. He hadn’t seemed to understand that it was purely for research.

… Yuuki wasn’t sure if it was purely for research. Not anymore. Not after getting cold feet and abandoning Amamiya like that.

“Fine,” Yuuki said.

Sakamoto grinned, ignoring how flat his tone was. Ignoring everything he didn’t like, as he always had, until he couldn’t anymore. Just like Yuuki.

Sakamoto hung onto him for most of the train ride, only letting go to adjust the bag so the cat inside wasn’t crushed by the other riders. Yuuki wished there was enough space to pull his phone out; he could mod the Phan-site on the go and sometimes did on his lunch breaks, determination to finish getting rid of that last troll fueling him more than an energy drink ever could.

Not for the first time, he thought of making the forum members-only… but that would make not only deleting posts but whole accounts that much harder. He’d have to spend time he didn’t have on vetting accounts and email addresses. People were still asking where they could send donations. He was going to have to set up a PayBud account after all.

Amamiya would be surprised, wouldn’t he?

He would, Yuuki decided, once they got off the train and entered his neighborhood. All of the buildings looked at least twenty years old, in desperate need of new coats of paint and oiled hinges on the doors. Sakamoto led him through cramped alleys filled with various eateries just opening their shutters for the day, advertising lunch menus and kid’s specials. One proudly declared they served shaved ice in five different flavors.

Yuuki was sure he was thoroughly lost by the time Sakamoto ducked into a corner restaurant. There were so many people wandering the streets—housewives with small children, a college student or two on their day off, groups of the elderly shuffling off to a grocer’s around the corner, reusable shopping bags swinging from their elbows—and then they were gone, replaced with a buzzing quiet as a TV droned out the news.

“Welcome,” said a man standing behind the bar, before he looked up. Recognition flashed across his face. “Oh, it’s you. Kid’s not here.”

Sakamoto held up the wriggling bag of cat, making his way for the stairs. Yuuki, still in his hold, had no choice but to follow. “Just here to drop Mona off, Boss,” Sakamoto said.

“Feed him, would you? Kid’s got some food up there.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sakamoto said, though Morgana disagreed, wriggling even more. He jumped out of the bag, scrambled up the railing, and took a seat on a table left by the stairs.

Sakamoto let go of Yuuki’s sleeve long enough to start a rather impressive argument with the cat; Yuuki let them go at it, searching for the cat food.

There was a lone poster on the wall, and a few pungent bags of beans on the shelf by the stairs. An old CRT TV and an equally old gaming console took up most of another table; Yuuki was sure he could hear the legs groaning under their weight, but that might have been the floorboards. He took in the workbench covered in tools and notebooks, the bed in the corner, the shelf next to that with cans of wet cat food and some kind of plastic model of a bowl of ramen sitting dead center.

He did a double-take. There was a bed in the corner.

Amamiya didn’t… live here, did he?

“Yeah, I was surprised, too,” Sakamoto said, stomping over and picking up a can of food at random. “Thought it was weird, too, but—maybe Boss just didn’t have the space for him. That’s what I thought.”

“I don’t think they let people who don’t have the room take on, uh… fosters.”

Or delinquents with criminal records. Who was watching Amamiya at night? No one?

He could hear Sakamoto’s shrug as he gave the can to Morgana, who grumbled but still ate with a fervor. It was way past lunch by now; Yuuki couldn’t remember if he’d had breakfast or not.

Probably not, but with his luck he’d show up on TV with food stuck in his teeth.

“Dude, I dunno,” Sakamoto said. “All I know is that Boss is a pretty cool guy. Akira hasn’t complained about him once. But that could just be ‘cause he thinks he’s got it easy.”

“He does, though. Look at this place.”

The room was larger than Yuuki’s living room and kitchen combined, even if he didn’t count the blocked-off area behind the stairs. What couldn’t Amamiya get away with up here, late at night?

Sakamoto shrugged again. “Shit’s dusty as hell, though. And if ya want any air, ya gotta open the window. Feel how hot it is? And it ain’t even summer yet!”

There _was_ a stuffiness to the place. And his throat did itch from all the dust in the air; Amamiya was fighting a losing war on that front. But what Yuuki noticed the most was—

“We should have done Operation Maidwatch in here.”

The place was perfect as a testing site. If the maids really did just clean, they could have Amamiya’s place spotless before the night was through. And if not—if Sakamoto’s dearest wishes and Yuuki’s deepest concerns were true—it was private. There was no chance of disturbing the neighbors, no matter how rowdy it got.

“Maybe?” Sakamoto said, taking another glance around, his eyes catching on the cobwebs in the corners and strung between the rafters. “Dude, I just visited last week, man. Right after the whole thing with Madarame. You know he had a student, right?”

“Yeah.” Yuuki had seen pictures. Pretty much every news article showed Kitagawa with his former master at old galleries—though Yuuki had dug a little deeper and found no mention of the Kosei student at award ceremonies or the fancy parties Madarame attended. He was tall and thin and had an oddly pleasant face to look at.

Yuuki remembered staring at it, looking for imperfections through the pixels on his screen. Someone who was abused had no right to look so damn pretty, and yet there Kitagawa was. Yuuki didn’t doubt that he had a lot of sympathizers.

He tuned out Sakamoto’s story of how Kitagawa lost his only home when Madarame went to jail, was too prissy to stand his free room at school, and ran off to live with Amamiya for a night. Apparently they’d had hotpot. Apparently Kitagawa was some kind of art fiend who was bad with his money.

“That’s, um, great,” Yuuki said, wondering why he was still here.

Then his stomach told him that he had not, in fact, eaten breakfast. Or lunch.

Sakamoto snickered. “Lucky you, Boss runs a cafe.”

“Great,” Yuuki said, fighting off a wave of dizziness. Sakamoto ran down the stairs, hollering for food; Yuuki took his time, picking his way over to the stairs, then leaning against the wall in case he fainted mid-step. Morgana paused eating long enough to watch over him with a wary blue eye.

By the time he made it down the stairs, Sakamoto was seated in a booth, browsing through his phone. Yuuki took the seat opposite his and tried not to become one with the table.

“Sheesh, do any of you kids eat?” said the older man—Boss, probably, as he was still the only other person in the cafe—as he set down drinks. Cola with ice. Yuuki sucked his down greedily, then pressed his glass to his face.

Boss took a look at him, then turned to Sakamoto. “ _Do_ you?”

“Uh, yeah, I do,” Sakamoto said, offended. Yuuki heard he was still training despite the track team’s disbandment, although there were new rumors of the team getting back together. He wondered if Sakamoto was going to join again.

Then he thought that would cut into Phantom Thief work. Sakamoto seemed to enjoy it almost as much as he enjoyed running. If it ever came down to it, which one would he pick?

Boss snorted, heading back behind the counter. He came back with another drink for Yuuki and two heaping plates of curry. Once set on the table the pile almost reached Yuuki’s chin.

“Um,” he said, staring at the mountain he was expected to eat.

“I’ve got containers if you can’t finish it,” Boss assured him, with a slight glare Sakamoto’s way. Sakamoto ignored him, having already dug in.

At least it smelled good. Great, even. Yuuki couldn’t remember the last time he had curry. “Okay. Um, thanks.”

Boss looked shocked. What, had no one thanked him for take-out containers before?

Also probably not. Who in the world did that, aside from Yuuki?

Boss left them to eat in peace. Yuuki managed to decimate half his plate in the amount of time it took Sakamoto to finish his and order more; this one was more modest, a small hill rather than a mountain, but Sakamoto dug back in with the same gusto.

“Are you even chewing?” Yuuki asked at once point.

“Yah. ‘M schewin’,” Sakamoto said through a full mouth. He made an attempt to swallow.

“Was, uh—was this the fun thing you wanted to do? Get lunch?”

“Nah, you just looked hungry. Can’t do nothin’ if you’re hungry, right?”

“I guess not.”

Though his plate was looking less appetizing by the second. Something about the way Sakamoto was wolfing his down, or the fact that he hadn’t eaten breakfast, or that he wasn’t eating much at all, lately. Probably.

He really wanted to go home.

“Anyway, I was thinkin’—there’s a batting cage around here, right, Boss? We could do that. Or just hang up in Akira’s room. Kinda wanna see how bad you are at Star Forneus—”

Was Sakamoto listening to himself? They couldn’t hang out up in Amamiya’s room without his permission! They couldn’t use his things!

“—or, ugh, what’s that other one. Punch Out? Game of Life? Maybe it’s both? Anyway—”

Yuuki pushed his plate away, gut churning. This was wrong. He couldn’t spend the day hiding away in Amamiya’s room; he had a site to mod, and Sakamoto surely didn’t want to watch him do that.

“—or, uh, we can go somewhere else? There’s Dome Town. S’got great pancakes.”

“You want _more_ food?” Yuuki asked in disbelief.

Sakamoto only grinned. “Nah, that was a joke. Dome Town don’t sell pancakes.”

“Then, how’s it a joke?” Was it a Phantom Thief thing?

It must have been, because Sakamoto just grinned at him. “C’mon, man, work with me here. You work too damn hard on the Phan-site to not get a little R&R every once in a while. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I’ll have to work twice as long tomorrow.”

“Or, you can just leave it for the weekend, dude.”

Yuuki frowned at his tone, as if the site was just a hobby he could put down and pick up whenever he wanted. As if there weren’t thousands of posts an hour to mod; as if there weren’t hundreds of trolls to ban; as if Yuuki wasn’t using it to feed the Thieves info.

Sakamoto must have picked up on that. “Dude, I get it. You work hard on it. You’re proud of it. But ya gotta take a break every once in a while. I lost track buddies to that, back on the team. They ran and ran ‘cause they wanted to get better ‘n just wound up burnin’ themselves out. Everybody—even the Phantom Thieves—they’re countin’ on ya. So you gotta—”

“Take care of myself,” Yuuki finished, deadpan.

“Take care of yourself,” Sakamoto finished, at the exact same time.

They stared at each other for a while. Sakamoto looked dumbfounded; the stupefied expression made Yuuki’s lips twitch, made laughter bubble out of his throat until he was in hysterics. He pushed his plate farther out of the way, afraid he’d faceplant into it.

With his luck, he would.

Because—all this damn work he was doing—didn’t Sakamoto realize that it was cathartic? That, for those handful of hours turned into all-nighters, Yuuki felt like he was worth something? To someone? Didn’t he realize that was a better feeling than any temporary fun he had? That even Operation Maidwatch, with its stupid-sounding name and stupider plan, was just a front for some easy research? Yuuki had a whole list of questions he wanted to ask the maid when she showed up, but then he’d panicked like an idiot—like a _child_ —thinking of what he might find out.

Because if they did offer _those_ kinds of services, what would Yuuki do? He was inexperienced. He’d never so much as held someone’s hand other than his mother’s, and that only back in elementary school. When other boys were getting shy dare-kisses from girls, Yuuki was off by himself, left out.

And he hadn’t wanted the maid to feel pressured, either. He still remembered that empty classroom back in middle school. How he’d been boxed into a corner by one of his bullies.

How terrified he’d been.

“Hey, Mishima, dude… I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up,” Yuuki said, surprised to find that his voice had gone raw and wobbly, and that tears were dripping down his cheeks. “I don’t—I don’t need you to—t-to—”

To apologize, he tried to say. There was nothing for him to apologize for. It was Yuuki’s fault anyway, for shoving himself into their little maid party and then thinking that was what having friends felt like. For thinking that way and then justifying it with _but it’s research_.

Sakamoto wouldn’t care. He wasn’t smart enough to wrap his head around it.

“I mean, I don’t—don’t know why I’m—I just don’t—”

Yuuki couldn’t see—at some point his hands had come up to stem the tide of tears, not that it was working—but Sakamoto shoved a handful of napkins into them, and he took them, pressing them to his face.

“Lemme guess, then,” Sakamoto said. “Somethin’ along the lines of ‘we’re gonna have fun but I’m such a pathetic loser I’ll just bring us down.’ Something like that?”

“I’ve never hung out with—with p-people before,” was Yuuki’s excuse.

“Uh, ya hung out with the v-ball team all the time, right?”

“For _practice_.” Which was not fun, not at all. Sakamoto had to know that much. “Not for—for _fun_. Not to hang out in someone’s room and play old video games. We didn’t have the energy.”

“Huh.” The booth seat creaked as Sakamoto leaned back. One of his shoes knocked into Yuuki’s and then stayed there, like that wasn’t weird. Was it weird? Yuuki didn’t know; it _felt_ weird. The pressure was familiar, but in the empty cafe, with all the booth space between them—that felt weird. But Sakamoto was a touchy kind of guy; he’d clung to Yuuki the whole way here, all the way up the stairs to Amamiya’s—

Yuuki gasped, and it wobbled all the way down his throat.

“What?” Sakamoto said, suddenly in a panic. His feet jerked back; the booth seat creaked again. “Dude, what? Are you okay? Do you need a—a doctor or somethin’? Akira said there’s one right down the street—”

“No, I—I’m fine now,” Yuuki said. God, he was an idiot. How could he have missed it?

(Because he felt the same. It was that simple.)

Sakamoto hadn’t dragged him here to do anything in particular. He had no plans, not even a hint of one—because he’d expected to hang out with Amamiya, who’d do all the thinking. Sakamoto was ready to be dragged along for the ride, not to get ditched.

He was jealous.

He was jealous the way Yuuki was jealous—why wouldn’t anyone want to hang out with Goro goddamn Akechi, Detective Prince, teen heartthrob? Who cared if he’d talk circles around them, as long as they got the bragging rights?

Amamiya didn’t seem that shallow. He didn’t, but—

But who knew. Kamoshida didn’t seem that bad at first, during tryouts. It wasn’t until Yuuki and the rest of the first-years were vetted and signed on that he showed his true colors. Yuuki would remember that first month of practice for the rest of his life.

And—they’d sounded like they were enjoying themselves in the studio. Akechi had sounded so pleased to find at least one person who opposed his viewpoint so vocally, and of course it was Amamiya. Of _course_ it was Amamiya.

Out of everyone in that audience, it had to be Amamiya.

Yuuki would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous of Amamiya’s confidence, or his quick wit, or his easy charisma. Yuuki would really be lying if he said that Sakamoto had any of those things; it was the one thing tying him and Sakamoto together, that lack.

(And the near-expulsion, but Yuuki wasn’t counting that.)

So… Sakamoto was jealous. He just wanted someone to hang out with, someone who wasn’t a cat. The question was, though—

“Hey, um, Sakamoto?”

Sakamoto was staring at him, wide-eyed. “You sure you’re not gonna drop dead or somethin’? ‘Cause that doctor’s pretty good. She could probably help.”

“I’m fine, I just—” Yuuki took a deep breath, then let it out. “I just—it didn’t have to be me, right? But I was just—right there, and that was all, right?”

Sakamoto snorted, then broke into a fit. “What? Dude, no.” Yuuki found it odd, how wide his grin could get when he was laughing—then found it odd that he was noticing it at all. “Dude, we’re _buds_. We went through all that shit with Kamoshida! You woulda been tossed out with us!”

(Yuuki swore he heard Boss mutter, “Tossed out?”)

“So why shouldn’t we hang out every once in a while?” Sakamoto went on. “Sure, I’m kinda bummed Akira couldn’t make it, but that’s life. He ditches me all the time. He’s got, like, four part-time jobs—”

(“Four?” came the awed question from behind the bar.)

“—and like, a dozen other people he’s friends with—”

(“A _dozen_?”)

“—and I get it. He can’t spend all his time with me. I get it. But—Goro Akechi, dude. Akira. Really?”

(An irritated hum this time. Yuuki had the faint idea that Boss didn’t know who Goro Akechi was but was going to find out.)

Sakamoto huffed. “So when you say shit like—like that I only wanted to hang out with ya because you were nearby, that’s wrong. Got it? You’re cool.”

“I am?” Yuuki asked.

“Yeah, sure are,” Sakamoto said, with a nod for good measure. “Operation Maidwatch—I couldn’t have thought of that in a million years. Too busy thinkin’ ‘bout the maid. But you, you saw it as a—what, an opportunity? To find out if the company was treating the maids right? I never woulda thought of that.”

Was that it? He was cool because he’d thought up some lame excuse to look at a real-life maid?

Doubt must have shown on his face. Sakamoto leaned far over the table, so low his shirt brushed his pile of curry. “What? You don’t believe me?”

“No one’s ever said I’m cool before,” Yuuki admitted. His hands worked at the bundle of soaked napkins; his eyes fixed on a painting on the far wall, a beautiful woman admiring the baby in her arms. Had he been admired like that, once upon a time? Had his mother ever looked at him that way?

Had anyone?

“Well, you’re cool,” Sakamoto asserted. “You’re the coolest guy I know—and I know some pretty cool guys. So, you know, if you’re not too cool to hang out with some dumb jock like me, let’s go find something fun to do!”

That again. Something fun. As if anything with Yuuki could be fun.

But Sakamoto wanted to, and he wanted to with Yuuki. Not with Amamiya, and not just because Amamiya wasn’t around.

And, if he was being honest, his search for potential new targets at the studio had been a giant bust. Going home and doing the usual thing with nothing to show for all his carefully laid plans felt wrong. No one had told him he had to bring potential targets back, but he’d wanted something out of the day, some kind of proof that he’d tried.

And, if he was being totally honest—it was the first time anyone had asked him to hang out, instead of the other way around. How could he say no, when it was always the last thing he wanted to hear?

“Sure,” he said, and basked in Sakamoto’s million-watt smile.

* * *

A few days after it hit Yuuki: if Amamiya wanted to talk to a pretty face, all Yuuki had to do was supply one. He wasn’t pretty himself—Yuuki knew he was less than average in the looks department—but people like Takamaki and Akechi were, and Amamiya wanted to spend time with them. He’d been just as excited about Operation Maidwatch as Yuuki and Sakamoto, too.

Besides, what kind of Phantom Thief didn’t have a pretty girl hanging off each arm?

(Because, no, Akechi didn’t count. Just… no.

Though once he pictured it, it was very hard to shove down. Maybe Amamiya wouldn’t mind, but the squirming feeling Yuuki got in his gut said otherwise.)

A few days after that, everything was ready. The girls were excited, he was excited—Amamiya was sure to be excited, too, once he found out what Yuuki had arranged for them. He tried hard not to think of it as a double date. A regular, plain old meetup would work just fine.

Maybe they could do it more often, if this one went well. Maybe they’d get bigger, too. Maybe they’d get so big he’d have to rent out a convention hall to hold them all.

That was a nice thought. He let it buoy him through the first ten minutes—that was okay, he was early, Amamiya hadn’t gotten there yet either—then through the next ten. He made a bunch of stilted conversation with Amamiya, who didn’t look happy to be standing around in the June heat, the air just humid enough to be uncomfortable.

The thought died after half an hour. Crowds passed them by, but no one took more than a passing glance at the two teenagers sweating by the vending machines. Yuuki dared to call one of the girls.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Uh, hi,” he said, like an idiot. “It’s uh, Mishiman. From the forum.”

“Oh!” she said. “Right! The—the forum guy! And—oh, no, the meetup! That was today, wasn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah—”

“I’m already at home and everything! Oh, man, I’m so sorry—”

She was babbling, but he swore he heard the rush of people around her—but that could have been a movie on TV. “You’re at home? You—forgot?”

“I did! God, I’m such an idiot! Miki didn’t even remind me—”

Miki must have been her friend from the forum, but this time he thought he heard a familiar tone. An announcement. Something-something Shibuya. _From_ Shibuya.

“Was that an announcement?” he asked, hoping he was wrong. It could still be a movie. He could still salvage this somehow, arrange a time for a new meetup, couldn’t he?

“Oh, uh, yeah!” she said, and laughed, something high-pitched that pierced right through his ear. “Miki got sick, so, uh, I’m taking her home?”

“I thought you were already at home?”

“I’m at the station near my house—look, I gotta go, okay? The train’s coming! Uh, bye!”

She hung up before he could protest. He stared at his phone, then at the ground, then forced himself to look up. Amamiya’s face was inscrutable, though the thinning of his lips promised anger. “Um,” Yuuki made himself say, “she said her friend got sick, so they’re heading home. S-sorry.”

“That so?” was all Amamiya said. He tugged on some gloves, dug in his wallet for change, grabbed a drink from the machine, and gulped it down greedily. Yuuki watched his throat work—it was odd, how such a simple action could be so mesmerizing—then looked away, at the street. Students in uniforms and casual clothes strolled by, their hands filled with bags or food. Mothers grasped the hands of their children. A pair of lovers, arm in arm, too lost in each other’s eyes to notice they were drifting around the street like a pair of drunks.

“I am!” His voice broke. Yuuki tried to will the shame away. “Who wouldn’t want to spend time with a pair of cute girls, huh? And just think about the boost the site would get!”

Though Yuuki still wasn’t sure how the two correlated, he was sure of this: ever since Akechi had gone on TV and had his mini debate with Amamiya, more comments were coming in. There were people willingly giving over names of those who’d wronged them—more than the Phantom Thieves could handle, and most of them over petty squabbles—and people giving advice when they could.

It was becoming everything Yuuki dreamed it could be.

But it didn’t feel like enough.

He wanted the Thieves’ name to skyrocket. He wanted more visitors. He wanted people to look at him and know that he built that site, all by himself. Sakamoto thought he was cool; he wanted Amamiya to look at him and agree.

Amamiya did look at him, though he only hummed. Yuuki leaned against the machines, thrumming and hot, and tried to think of a way he could salvage this.

He couldn’t. He’d wasted Amamiya’s time. He’d wasted those girls’ time, too.

“We’ve been here a while,” Amamiya said.

“I know, I’m sorry, I really thought they were coming!”

“Yuuki, that’s fine,” Amamiya said. “These things happen, and you can’t plan for everything. But we’re both here, and I might’ve told Boss I wouldn’t need dinner, so…”

Yuuki turned his head; one cheek pressed into the warm button for a bottle of Second Maid. “You still want to hang out after all this?”

“I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t.”

“Huh,” Yuuki said, trying to look past the glare on Amamiya’s glasses and failing.

“But if we do—you’re eating more than a plate of fries this time. Got it?”

Yuuki still had that container of curry at home. It was sitting in the fridge, relatively untouched. Yuuki was afraid to finish it after Sakamoto had let it slip that Amamiya worked in the cafe; he made bad coffee and washed the dishes and cleaned up at closing, and while Sakamoto hadn’t mentioned anything about him making curry, Yuuki wanted to savor it.

It was curry (potentially) made by a Phantom Thief. There had to be something special about it.

“Uh, sure, I guess,” he said, remembering the yen he’d saved up for this. He had more than enough to treat himself.

“Good,” Amamiya said.

Maybe it was just Yuuki’s imagination, but Amamiya’s lips quirked for a split second into something proud. Proud about what, Yuuki didn’t know.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: 'ren' in ESP means again or once again, and is part of the word for revival or resurrection. I thought it was an interesting coincidence.
> 
> i-chei-ren, ih=yu-tey should mean something along the lines of 'It's good to see you again.'
> 
> iuz iyon-du iz-syou-chee aru-tes should mean roughly 'Always the savior, aren't you?'
> 
> fuai-ro-fan-nz: 'It was real,' or 'It was true.'
> 
> reth-i, probably the easiest, is simply 'I know.'


	7. The Moon, Rank 4

There was something off about Maruki, Akira decided.

It didn’t have anything to do with the lab coat—as soon as Akira showed up at the door, the coat came off, left draped over his desk or chair. One day Akira had shown up for a session and Maruki had all but thrown it into his wastebasket. He was clearly trying to keep the session and the space they did it in as comfortable as possible.

The problem was, if Akira didn’t talk, Maruki tended to.

This was fine. Cognitive psience was an inherently interesting topic, and it got him thinking about other things than mafias extorting students and his own fear of men in lab coats, which was probably good.

Probably, because Maruki could go on for hours if Akira let him.

Akira had gotten good at listening over the years. He’d gotten good at eavesdropping. He’d gotten _very_ good at finding out the things no one else wanted him to know.

That just meant he’d gotten very good at keeping his mouth shut, he knew. It meant when he talked, people listened. It meant when he desperately had something to say, even if that something wasn’t what others wanted to hear, he had trouble breaking through the incessant chatter to make himself heard.

Maruki chuckled. “But listen to me, prattling on. You look like you’ve got something to say, Akira. Have I been boring you with my hypotheses?”

Akira looked up from his decimated cookie. There was frosting in the middle, and it was all over his hands. “Oh, no, it’s fascinating. It really is. I just…”

“Can’t concentrate?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “It’s hot, I’m tired… it’s pretty hard to focus.”

Coupled with his late nights studying (when Morgana didn’t sleep on his homework, getting cat hair all over his assignments), multiple part-time jobs, and helping so many people with their problems that it was hard to keep them all straight, he was beginning to lose sight of his goal: finding Yuuki.

Yuuki was the whole reason he came back, and Akira was pushing him farther and farther back, prioritizing teaching the Velvet twins what a Big Bang Burger was and helping a former politician reaffirm his position and playing pool with the Thieves and paying his teacher good money so she could gripe at him and take naps on his bed.

“I can’t help but feel guilty, I guess,” he went on. Maruki sipped at his juice; with the weather this hot, tea was out of the question. “Like I should be doing more. But I just… can’t.”

He wanted to find Yuuki. He wanted to bury himself in Yuuki. He wanted to rest his head on his lap and sleep for a thousand years. Yuuki would let him, probably, if he fell in love with Akira again.

 _If_ he fell in love with Akira again.

“We all have those days,” Maruki said. “The heat brings them out, I think—but it could also be that you’ve simply been working too hard, trying to prove yourself to people who won’t listen. I won’t lie, with rumors like those working their way around the school… It has to be tough on you.”

“Never thought my assault charge would wind up becoming drug dealing. Isn’t that—that’s a harsher offense, isn’t it? There’s no way I’d be on probation if I was.”

“You’re talking about the recent Phantom Thieves case, aren’t you?”

“All those kids,” Akira said. Some of them were his own classmates. None of them had any idea what they were getting into. “If any of them had tried going to the police before Kaneshiro’s arrest, what would have happened to them?”

“I’m afraid I don’t practice law, so it’s hard for me to say.” Maruki contemplated the snacks on the table: crackers and Rocky, tiny bags of cookies and chips, gum and lollipops. His face fell. “But… the law has been known to be rather indiscriminate in that regard. I imagine it wouldn’t be very good.”

“Me too,” Akira said. After a pause, he added, “They tried to get me, too.”

“The mafia?”

Akira nodded. He licked frosting off his fingers; it was too sweet, but he’d been eating so much salt lately… “There were dozens of other students on that street. Why’d they ask me?”

“That’s hard to say,” Maruki repeated. “But you do blend in rather well. Perhaps that was the type they were going for?”

“You mean the type that’s easily duped and doesn’t know any better?”

“I’ll agree on that last part, but… That first one. You’re saying you’re too trusting.”

He’d trusted the police to do their jobs. He’d trusted that woman to tell the truth. He’d trusted that drunk man not to bribe his way to the settlement he wanted. He’d trusted the school to keep his record private. He’d trusted Boss to be a halfway decent guardian.

(He was getting better, but in the beginning? Not so much.)

He’d trusted his teachers to be halfway decent, too. He’d trusted and trusted and all it had gotten him was in one mess after another. He’d nearly been expelled. He’d nearly been arrested, twice. He’d narrowly avoided juvenile detention and a permanent stain on his records only through the power of the Metaverse and the Phantom Thieves.

No, Akira didn’t trust anymore. Not adults, anyway.

“If I trusted too much, it wouldn’t have taken a deal and some free snacks to get me to come here,” he said.

“So you say, but I think you do. You trust me, don’t you?”

“I trust our deal.”

Maruki’s face fell further. “Is that so? I’ll admit, I’m hurt.”

“Because it’s human nature not to rock the boat?”

“No,” Maruki said, “because I thought we were building something together. A sort of camaraderie. Even if it was just me talking your ear off the whole time.”

“That’s not—” _friendship_ , he almost finished, but that wasn’t true. He’d fallen in love with less than this. He’d fallen in love with a message on a screen and a radiant soul.

“Fair?” Maruki guessed.

“Isn’t it one-sided? If—if I never get to voice my own problems, even outside of the sessions—and is it allowed? Should a doctor like yourself be forming friendships with his clients?”

“I’m here to help, remember that.” Though now Maruki was shutting his eyes, thinking it over. “Some people require a deep, personal connection before they’re capable of venting their problems. That would be—and I know this is unprofessional, but it’s for the sake of example—you and say, Mishima. He’s your classmate, isn’t he?”

Akira nodded. He stared at the crumbs on his napkin; as far as he knew, this Yuuki hadn’t been to see Maruki once. He was too busy working on the Phan-site and arranging offline meetings to want to fix his problems. Akira wished he’d take a day off just to rest.

“You see, you need that bond—that trust—to know that you’re really being listened to. I’ve seen it often in those who were abused or neglected as children; you grow up thinking no one notices your problems, so you stuff them down and learn to make everyone else happy, to put yourself dead last. Meanwhile, those like Sakamoto and Takamaki—they want to vent. They’ll vent to the closest person they can find, because they know that there are people out there who will listen.”

Like Ryuji’s mom and Ann’s parents.

“That means they reach a catharsis faster than most. They don’t need solutions, because simply venting _is_ the solution to them… And this is, of course, before we dive into the various attachment styles.”

“I suppose so,” Akira said. Attachment styles? Did he want to know?

“All that to say that if it feels like I’m getting too friendly—that’s because I have to. You wouldn’t vent your frustrations to someone you hated, would you?”

He thought of trying to tell Kamoshida that what he was doing hurt his students and getting blown off. He thought of Madarame’s proud sneer as he admitted to ruining the lives of countless artists and being brushed aside. He thought of Kaneshiro blackmailing the young and stupid and being told it was a life lesson. “I… guess not.”

“But you would to someone you trust, wouldn’t you?”

“I… suppose.” Although his session being mandated by the school wasn’t conducive to trust-building, Akira had been given the choice to talk or not, and he’d chosen to speak.

It had felt good, to question why it had to be him, why it always had to be him, why the universe seemed to have it out for him. He’d Sung with a god. He’d been nothing but a soul, trapped in a crystal, unable to move. He’d been an emperor; he’d been a savior; he’d been a thousand things, some of them good, some of them bad.

“Tell me what you’re thinking right now, then, Akira.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

Akira met his gaze; Maruki leaned in close, ready to hear. Ready to listen.

(Ready to take, screamed a little part of him. Brash Oni beat it back and huffed.)

“Right now,” Akira said. He was aware of his gaze going distant, looking past the kind look in Maruki’s eyes, trying to see the shape of his soul and failing. He stopped, shook his head. “I guess…”

The clock ticked. Back in his little house in the dream world, there hadn’t been a clock. There had only been the time when Yuuki was there and when he wasn’t, the monitor thrumming to life with an electric thrill that had set Akira’s teeth to vibrating. He’d talked and talked to offset the discomfort, then began equating it with love: love made his teeth itch and his hands ache and his bones restless. Love made his body into an instrument only Yuuki could play.

The worst part, though, was… “I miss that time. I miss it so much.”

“‘That’ time?”

“The time I spent in a dream,” Akira said. “It was—it felt like years. Years of doing nothing. Years of being nothing, of just being myself. Years where I had no obligation except to myself. But it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t—”

His hands were shaking. The only proof of his time in the dream had become the Sharl terrorizing the Soreil. He hadn’t kept a thing. He couldn’t even count the crystal that had once beat right next to his heart—all of it was gone upon his return, upon waking, like a cruel trick.

Akira had chosen to wake from it. Akira had done this to himself—because he wanted Yuuki more than that transient time that could be snatched away in an instant. That time that _had_ been snatched away in an instant.

At least he still remembered. At least he still carried it with him. But…

“It wasn’t what I wanted, in the end,” he finished.

Maruki asked, “What did you want in the end?”

Akira tried to smile, but it shook around the edges. He let it drop. “There was no one to love there. That’s what I wanted. I wanted to be loved, so I woke up. Turns out I was in a holding cell the whole time. Have you ever seen the backside of a police station, Maruki?”

“I—no, I can’t say I have,” Maruki said.

“It’s blank. There’s nothing there. There’s no—no personality to the place. There’s no need for it, but I thought—if this is what I woke up to, maybe it would have been better to stay asleep. That dream… it was like someone had taken the inside of a machine a dumped a field into it. Verdant, grassy plains criss-crossed with wires. A wall as high as the sky in the shape of a motherboard. A cliff with metal rods poking out of the earth. Everywhere I turned, there was something new to discover. It was a strange world, but it was still mine.”

“Dreams _are_ funny things,” Maruki said, reaching for any kind of advice. He didn’t need to know the dream world was real, in a sense. He didn’t need to know any more at all.

“Yeah, they are,” Akira agreed.

“And with a life as turbulent as yours has become, it’s understandable that you would seek out the peace that dream gave you.”

“I just need to find it in real life, right?”

Maruki gave him a small, proud smile. “Not so many people understand that.”

“It’s hard to.” Akira reached for another piece of cookie, then stared at the crumbs dotting his napkin. In his dream world, there had been no worry over food crumbs. Food just didn’t make a mess in dreams, he supposed. “They’re convenient, for one thing. Lucid dreamers have been known to fly.”

“Would you want to fly, Akira?”

His hand froze, cookie halfway to his mouth. He stared at it—the crumbling edges, the crumbs on his fingers, the bit of frosting clinging to the top—and put it back. He thought of flying with Renall in her airship, the noiselessness giving way to a sudden, jarring snap from the engine a split second before it exploded. He’d been dead within seconds, long enough to scream, long enough to reach out for Renall with one hand and find her lifeless, shrapnel jutting out of her skin like the teeth of some giant Genom—and then he’d been dead, watching his body fall out of the sky and hit the too-distant ground.

The airbuses aboard the Soreil were quieter things, with roomier seats than Renall’s two-seater ship, and he’d only managed to board it by keeping a death grip on his escort and closing his eyes.

“No,” he said. “I’m afraid of heights, actually. Can’t even climb a ladder.”

Maruki hummed, like he didn’t quite believe it, but didn’t press.

Which was good, because Akira had no way to explain.

* * *

Yuuki stared. The more he stared, though, the higher the number climbed—ten yen, fifty, two hundred—until he finally forced himself to look away.

It was—it was a lot of money. More money than he thought he’d get when he set up the account, definitely more money than he thought he’d get, period. No one who had this much cash to spend would be a fan of the Phantom Thieves, he thought. The poll on his site didn’t lend credit to the numbers, either.

But… still. It had climbed, and kept climbing. He’d gone to bed with fifty measly yen in the account—a test, to see if it worked or not—and woken up to over ten thousand. In barely six hours, he’d pulled in ten thousand yen for the Phantom Thieves.

He took a deep breath. His fingers were still shaking, his heart still racing. Ten thousand. Ten _thousand_.

It almost made that terrible, shitty interview with that reporter worth it. She’d taken turns being a leery, belligerent drunk and sobering up to ask questions and take notes faster than he could keep up with. By the time it was over, he was sweating through his good shirt and wondering where he’d gone wrong.

Yuuki tried not to think about the incident on the street after. The memory was as good as dead. It was buried and forgotten. Yuuki would die before he remembered it.

He groaned, leaned back, scrubbed his face with his hands. A drunk reporter shouldn’t have come to his rescue. He shouldn’t have stopped for those drag queens at all. Anyone with any business sense wouldn’t be doing it in Shinjuku, period.

But it had been for the Phantom Thieves, and it was over. Yuuki had to swallow his pride.

He groaned again. Steps creaked through the hall—one of his parents on their way to the bathroom, like Yuuki had been before curiosity tugged him to his phone and the account.

It was… a lot of money. Not the kind a Phantom Thief would sneeze at, but still a lot.

More than enough to pay Amamiya back for those fries and then some.

More than enough to pay Sakamoto back for that curry, too.

But… just paying them back didn’t feel right. It had to be bigger, better—they were the Phantom Thieves! Yuuki couldn’t take them out to some ramen or beef bowl joint and say it was his treat! It had to be special, it had to be worth what they’d given to society.

They’d taken down a mafioso targeting students! They’d taken down a guy not even the police could catch! That was not an exploit worthy of extra noodles at a ramen shop!

It had to be someplace fancy. If the staff asked, he could make up some excuse about saving up for a—a birthday party. Sure. Sakamoto’s was around this time of year, right?

Then he frowned. If Sakamoto went, he’d scarf down whatever he got without even tasting it. So anyplace that wasn’t all-you-can-eat was out, although Amamiya would surely enjoy whatever he was served with a kind of sophistication that wasn’t normally found in teenagers.

Then again, Amamiya would find ways to compliment the stains on the tablecloth or on Yuuki’s shirt. So if Yuuki wanted a genuine compliment—

He frowned harder. Not a compliment. He wasn’t doing this for compliments; he was doing this to pay them back for the food, and for all the good they’d done for society.

So. So—

The floor creaked. Yuuki realized his bladder was fit to burst and jolted out of his seat.

He thought on it all day: clearly it had to be a buffet of some kind, and one of high quality. It couldn’t be some random place, either, and it had to serve food teenagers would like. Probably lots of meat; no one could resist meat.

All the reviews online pointed to the Wilton. The buffet was high-class, and you didn’t need a hotel reservation to eat there. As far as Yuuki could tell, there wasn’t even a dress code. They could go in their uniforms, right after school.

On his lunch break, he checked the account. Twenty-two thousand.

He choked on air. How was this possible? Was it some kind of—of joke? Did people _do_ that?

But when he checked the Wilton’s prices, he nearly choked again—eight thousand a person, plus fees for leaving waste. As if Sakamoto would leave waste. As if Amamiya couldn’t plan for it—and at this rate, he really would have enough to pay for all three of them.

 _But it’s donated money_ , some little part of him said. _You can’t do that._

But he wanted to, and these were the Phantom Thieves. They had to know how much their fans loved them, and what better way was there than with expensive, high-quality food?

But the thought nagged at him, stuck fast like a splinter: it was donated money. Yuuki had promised it would go to helping the Phantom Thieves fight injustice, not to paying for expensive buffets—but good food made for better fighters, right? No one could fight crime on an empty stomach.

Or so he told Amamiya, who glared around the buffet hall like it was infested with roaches.

(Sakamoto, thank God, couldn’t make it. Yuuki wasn’t sure if he would be making that face, too. Yuuki wasn’t sure he could handle it.)

“I’m sure they’ll understand once I explain,” Yuuki said, though his argument was beginning to sound flimsy and frail. His phone was heavy in his pocket—all that money, just sitting there, waiting to be used for good… It was a waste not to use it. He was sure of it.

Amamiya shook his head. “I appreciate the thought, Yuuki, but you know why. It’s not right to use money like that. How many people in this room do you think have thought once or twice wasn’t a big deal? How many people do you think can’t stop, now that they’ve started?”

Yuuki snapped his head up, a question on his lips—and froze. There were dozens of well-dressed men and women scattered around the hall, all of them with faux-gold plates in hand, chattering as they crowded around one table or another. An impressively fat woman took up the table with the chocolate fountain. An impressively fat man took up an entire couch, his plate piled high with nearly everything off the meat table. He panted, as if the trip to the table was thirty laps around the Shujin gym.

And there was no one, not a single person, in a school uniform.

He snapped his mouth shut and stared a hole in the carpet. What a stupid idea. Take the Phantom Thieves to a classy buffet! Take them right after school, so he wouldn’t chicken out!

God. How fucking dumb could he get?

“Um,” he said, aware of how weak his voice was. “I, uh—I don’t know. A lot, maybe? Embezzlement is a pretty big thing with politicians, isn’t it?”

Amamiya nodded.

“Right,” Yuuki said. He would remember the pattern of this carpet for the rest of his life, just like he would remember the heart-printed shorts of that over-enthusiastic drag queen, even though he didn’t want to. He would see them in his nightmares. He would never escape the shame.

As if his whole damn life wasn’t a shame.

“You know,” Amamiya said, ducking in close enough that Yuuki could focus on his eyes, “it was just a plate of fries. Definitely not something worth all of… this. Now that I’m here, though, I could go for a beef bowl. Join me?”

Yuuki glanced around the room one more time, taking in the smells, the chatter, the people staring at the two high school kids in the corner—Yuuki in his rumpled shirt, Amamiya with cat hair all over one shoulder. He sighed.

If Amamiya said it wasn’t right, then it wasn’t right—and if he said he was fine with beef bowls, then that was true, too.

“Let me treat you this time,” Yuuki said, thinking of the extra money he had stashed away. It was probably enough for a couple of beef bowls. “But, uh—nothing too fancy? I don’t have much on me.”

Amamiya snorted. His lips quirked into something resembling a smile. “You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?”

He’d probably have more if he hadn’t had to take that trip to Shinjuku. He’d definitely have more if he just used the damn donations.

Yuuki rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh, that’s me. Charming everyone I meet by being broke. Are we going or not?”

Amamiya’s face did something funny then, as he backed off and took in the room: for a second it was as if he wasn’t all there, as if he was looking for something—or someone—else. Yuuki thought he saw longing before the glare returned full force—but that couldn’t be right. What in the world could Amamiya, of all people, be longing for?

It was the meat, and the lack of pretty girls. It had to be. Yuuki failed him twice in a row, and he was disappointed. Not—not longing. Definitely not.

(If Yuuki was even reading him right. He’d been wrong before. He’d been wrong plenty of times.)

“What?” Yuuki asked.

“I won’t be able to go deluxe,” Amamiya said, cupping his chin with a hand. He turned to the entrance; Yuuki followed along, preparing for the harsh bite of concrete under his shoes. The carpet was so plush it was like walking on air.

“That’s all you’re worried about?”

“I’m a growing boy, Yuuki. I can’t fill up on curry all the time.”

“I’ve seen the lunches you bring sometimes. You do _not_ fill up on curry all the time.”

Amamiya chuckled. It was deep and throaty and rich, for a boy that was only sixteen. He probably never had to worry about his voice cracking at the worst possible times, either. “True, but up ‘til now? Curry, twice a day. Once if I was lucky. That stuff goes bad quicker than you’d think.”

Yuuki knew that, after finding mold growing on his leftovers after a week. He’d scraped it off and eaten the rest anyway. Hirotaka had been quietly concerned. Yuuki had been too tired to actually scrape together anything else at that hour.

“And,” Amamiya went on, as they exited the Wilton into the muggy, steaming air of July in Tokyo, “now that Boss has entrusted me with his kitchen, I have to make full use of it. No more bread for lunch! No more curry for breakfast! I’ll make as many fried chicken and omelet bentos as I can stand!”

“Which would be?”

“Who knows?”

Yuuki allowed himself a chuckle. It was weird, how easily he could talk to Amamiya. It was almost like they were friends, instead of manager and Phantom Thief. It was almost like Yuuki hadn’t ruined Amamiya’s second chance at high school. It was almost like Yuuki was wanted, and warmth pooled in his stomach at the thought.

He dared a glance—Amamiya, head tilted as he smothered a laugh with a fist, his eyes crinkled at the edges, his lips quirked just so—then tripped over his own two feet. His hands flew out to catch him; Amamiya was faster. Yuuki had just enough time to register the soft give of his shirt and the skin beneath it before he was back on both feet, Amamiya’s hands on his shoulders, keeping him steady.

Yuuki, who thought he’d be eating pavement, stared. “Uh,” he said, as eloquent as always.

“Careful,” Amamiya said, dusting off his arms. Yuuki’s mouth went a little drier at every pass.

“Yeah,” he croaked out after a while. Amamiya’s hands were still on his arms. They were warm, almost hot under the sun. “Uh, thanks.”

“Anything for our manager,” Amamiya said, his lips quirking like he was telling another joke. The lenses in his glasses were far too big; even now, with Amamiya staring right at him, he could barely see beyond that damned glare.

Manager. Not friend, not even the cheesy _anything for you_ line that Amamiya must have employed on dozens of girls back in his hometown. Yuuki wasn’t sure if that particular slip of the tongue would make him feel better or worse and didn’t want to find out.

Manager. That was… That was really all he was, wasn’t he?

Yuuki backed out of his grip. Amamiya let him go, watched him rub at his arms, listened to him say, “Yeah. Thanks.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Amamiya’s hands stuffed into his pockets, Yuuki’s hugging his elbows. The beef bowls tasted too much like grease for Yuuki to enjoy, and sat heavier in his stomach than the worst of any guilts.

* * *

It was still heavy days later, when the police pulled him out of class for another round of questioning. With some of Kaneshiro’s victims being Shujin students, Yuuki supposed it was normal.

But he hadn’t been a victim. He’d been avoiding Shibuya since the reporter incident. Shinjuku was a surprising goldmine of information—drunks, insecure boy- and girlfriends, the occasional overworked lawyer or taxi driver—and though Yuuki had to stare down the pair of drag queens on a nightly basis, they didn’t bother him anymore. It was probably the reporter’s influence. No one wanted to mess with her.

These were new detectives, though. He didn’t recognize the man with the square jaw and cleft chin, his body as stocky as an athlete’s, his hair cropped close to the scalp. He did recognize Goro Akechi as he leafed through some papers, his ever-present briefcase on the floor beside his chair.

“Oh, that’s right,” Akechi said, looking up from his papers. “Your father’s been notified of our questioning. He said you can speak if you like, or we can call in a substitute witness, as he’s busy with work at the moment. You can verify this.”

He probably _was_ busy. Hirotaka had pulled on his suit and headed into the office for the first time in months just that morning; Yuuki didn’t want to bother him.

“You didn’t need this kind of permission before,” Yuuki said, remembering the last time the detectives were in the school. They hadn’t led with that kind of statement. Yuuki would have remembered it.

Probably. If he hadn’t been dead on his feet.

Akechi blinked slowly, as if he, too, was dead tired. It was unfair; he looked as put-together as he always did. “We were given express permission by every parent and guardian we contacted at the time, provided that one of the school’s staff was on hand to sit and act as a substitute witness. Most of them expressed the sentiment that their children would be more inclined to speak of any wrong-doings if their parents weren’t there. The ones that did not agree allowed us to hold questionings at a later time, when they could be present, in the case of several of the volleyball team’s members. Is that sufficient?”

“Who would be the substitute witness?”

“A Doctor Maruki,” said Akechi’s partner, whose name escaped Yuuki. It was something bland. Inukawa. Inuyama.

Yuuki definitely didn’t want him in here. As soon as it was over he’d drag Yuuki over to his office to talk through his feelings, and Yuuki did not want to talk through his feelings. He wanted to be sleeping through his math class. “I’m… not in that much trouble, am I?”

“Oh, it depends,” Akechi said, finally seizing some paper and sliding it across the table. “Does this look familiar to you, Mishima?”

It did—it was the account he’d closed last night, after refunding every damn yen it held. He’d made up some lie about the Phantom Thieves telling him the money was better used being sent to charities or hospitals or hotlines. “Um. It does.”

“It does,” said his partner. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Yuuki said, and sighed. “I’m, um. The one who made the account.”

“Goodness.” Yuuki had to hand it to him; Akechi was an amazing actor, acting shocked by the revelation. Yuuki was only surprised by how quickly he’d gathered all of this info. “You did? All by yourself?”

“Anyone can make a GetFunded page,” Yuuki said, though that was more to himself than to the detectives. He hadn’t done anything wrong by making it. He hadn’t lied, even though he had almost used the funds for an expensive buffet dinner.

“That’s certainly true,” Akechi said, with a brilliant smile this time. “They’re quite useful, aren’t they? You always hear stories about some generous individual raising money for the needy, or for their sick father, or for their pet’s surgery—and then running off with the whole of it.”

“I didn’t use any of it.”

“Oh?”

“I didn’t,” Yuuki said again, more firmly. It had been a serious pain, noting down who donated how much, sending them all a not-so-personal thank-you from the Phantom Thieves. He was their manager; it was his job. “I returned all the money. So—so why am I here?”

“First, we’re going to assume you’re declining the substitute witness,” his partner said.

Whatever was going to happen, he really didn’t want the counselor to know. He’d ask questions; he’d insist Yuuki could confide in him; he’d pull that doctor-patient confidentiality bullshit and then turn around and sell him out. Yuuki knew it. “I am. So—so why am I here?”

“Because you have ties to the Phantom Thieves.”

Akechi, at least, seemed sure of it—he wore that same self-assured smile he’d worn when he declared that the Phantom Thieves were no better than the criminals they brought low, no better than some common, petty burglar or scam artist—but his partner nodded along, equally assured.

His partner said, “You see, my daughter’s a fan of theirs. She donated her birthday money to the account you closed last night, Mishima.”

“I—if I didn’t return all of it—”

“Oh, you did,” the man said, with a nod, “but what I was drawn to was the note you added.”

“I—that, that was—”

What could he say? That he was lying the whole time? That he was impersonating the Phantom Thieves? But then they’d ask what he’d intended to do with the money, and Yuuki definitely couldn’t tell them he’d been planning to go to an expensive buffet…

Akechi shifted in his chair, watching, waiting. The longer this went on, the deeper Yuuki would dig himself in; he shut his mouth and focused on a ring in the grain of the table, a knot in some tree that had only been grown to be cut down. It felt an awful lot like what Yuuki had been through—living, only to be beaten down and ignored and laughed at; living, only to be worth nothing except what he could give others.

So Yuuki hung his head and explained, leaving out everything he could about Amamiya and his group of Thieves. He was nothing but a fan, but he was sure the Phantom Thieves used his site. They’d changed the hearts of stalkers and bullies and extortionists. They had to have found the account, he lied, since he’d gotten an anonymous message the day before: **We don’t need this money. Give it to those who do.**

“What was I supposed to do?” Yuuki asked the knot. He kept hearing Amamiya say, _You know it’s wrong._ He kept seeing the barely disguised scorn on his face as his took in the banquet hall. He kept feeling Amamiya’s hands on his arms, caging him in, keeping him upright.

What kind of face had Amamiya made then, and why did Yuuki want to know so badly?

“You were afraid they’d come after you,” Akechi guessed. Yuuki nodded.

That was one way to put it.

“They’re just—my heroes, you know?” he said. Amamiya’s quiet resolve and silent strength; Sakamoto’s fiery tongue and fierce determination; Takamaki’s—well, he wasn’t so sure about Takamaki. She was just nice. Nicer than any other girl who’d had the displeasure of Yuuki’s company. “So I wanted to give back to them a bit, and show them they’ve got fans who’ll help them, too. We can’t just ask them to fix all our problems without giving back, right?”

“A relationship based solely off of taking often leaves the giver resentful, yes,” Akechi said.

“I was so sure I’d find a way to give them the money. I didn’t think—I never thought they wouldn’t want it. Everything costs money these days, even Phantom Thieving. I’m sure of it.”

Amamiya’s four part-time jobs said it did—but he didn’t want the money. Did he think accepting aid was being greedy? Did he think being greedy was some kind of sin?

Or maybe it was just that he didn’t want to take from the same people he’d just helped out of a financial hole. Yuuki just wished he understood. He doubted he ever would.

Akechi chuckled. “That’s true! Everything revolves around money these days.”

His partner sighed. “So, just to confirm, Mishima: you’re telling us you have no ties to the Phantom Thieves, despite claiming so on the refund message?”

“I was really tired,” Yuuki said, “and they did tell me to give it back, but—no, I don’t. That was—that was the first time they ever spoke to me. It kind of made me feel… special.”

Because for that brief amount of time, Amamiya had been focused solely on him. Because for that brief goddamn instant, Yuuki had been something more than a manager. He’d almost been a threat.

Him. Yuuki. The nobody who cried too easily in middle school. Kamoshida’s messenger boy and personal punching bag.

Him.

“Aha,” Akechi said. “So you only wanted to brag a bit, then?”

“I know, it’s dumb…”

“It’s not,” said his partner. He stared at his hands for a moment, then looked up. “My daughter, she said that message was the best birthday present she could have gotten this year. A—a secondhand thank-you from the Phantom Thieves. You have no idea how ecstatic she was when she got it. She said it was like being noticed by a celebrity. Ah, no offense, Akechi.”

“None taken. The Phantom Thieves are certainly very popular at the moment, and I knew I only had fifteen minutes of fame, at the most. Society is whimsical like that. To be honest, I’ll enjoy being able to focus on other things—like my job.”

His partner sighed, staring at the paperwork spread out in front of him. Akechi kept his neat in a folder, where inquisitive teenagers couldn’t see it.

Not that Yuuki was all that skilled in reading upside-down. The jumble of papers meant next to nothing to him, except for a screenshot of what had to be the refund he’d sent the daughter.

God, he was such an idiot. Why did he have to word it like that? How stupid could he be?

“Speaking of which, that’s all we needed from you, Mishima,” Akechi said, flashing another brilliant smile. “Thank you for your honesty. You’d be surprised at the things people will say to hold even a bit of our attention.”

His partner nodded, looking tired.

Yuuki could not believe it was this easy. “I—you’re sure I can go?”

“Of course,” Akechi said. “Unless there’s something you forgot to mention?”

“Oh, no, I just,” Yuuki said, finding that knot in the table again, “I just didn’t think it’d be so easy. After last time…”

Those detectives had been so pushy, insisting that there had to be more, there had to be something Yuuki was forgetting. As if Yuuki could forget the things Kamoshida had done, but there were so many it was hard to keep them all straight.

“Yes, well, this has turned out to be a rather large misunderstanding,” Akechi said. “But if the message you received from the Phantom Thieves was truly anonymous, it’s going to be hard to trace. Moreso if they were smart and sent it from a public computer.”

“Oh,” Yuuki said, wondering if it was possible that they’d tell that was a lie, too.

Damn it all. What had he done?

“Yes,” Akechi said, still with that smile. Yuuki was starting to believe it was fake. No one could smile that long.

“I should—um, I should go back to class, then.”

“Yes, you should.”

He wobbled out of his chair, his legs turned to jelly. He only hesitated at the door, wanting to turn around, wanting to ask if Akechi and Amamiya were really friends—but there were pictures of them hanging out in trendy cafes, and chatting as they walked down the street, and playing chess at the park. If that wasn’t the picture of friendship, Yuuki didn’t know what was.

So he left, wobbling down the hall to the bathroom, where he hoped he could recuperate before he had to go back to class. He did not want to deal with everyone’s eyes on him after _that_.

As he opened the door, though, he ran into Komaki.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was scrubbed raw, and his voice was hoarse as he said, “Mishima. S’up?”

“Uh, nothing,” Yuuki said. “Are you okay?”

Komaki started to roll his eyes—with him, it was a full-body movement that started at the tips of his fingers and didn’t end until his hair flipped out of his eyes—but stopped, and blinked. “You really wanna know?”

He didn’t, but it would beat going back to class. “Sure, I guess.”

Komaki attempted a smile. It fell flat; he grabbed Yuuki by the arm and tugged him down the hall, up the stairs, across the courtyard path to the practice building. Komaki ducked through the door by the PE faculty office into the gym, where a class of students was lazily passing a ball around in a game of basketball. The volleyball nets, ever present before, were packed away.

Kamoshida never ran a gym class without some kind of volleyball game going on by the end of it. The nets had sat around on the gym floor for so long they were practically rusted in place; the only time Yuuki had seen them moved before were for the school-wide ceremonies.

It was weird, not seeing them there now.

Komaki led him down the catwalk running the length of the gym; they settled in a corner, far away from the game. Yuuki listened to the beat of the ball and shuddered.

“Yeah,” Komaki said, leaning his head back. “I hate it too, but it helps when I gotta focus. Or when I gotta think.”

“It just makes me sick.”

“Yeah, that too.” He took a breath. “Do I make you sick?”

“Uh,” Yuuki said, thinking hard. “Is this about you and Aizawa?”

“It ain’t about Toma. S’about me. Do I make you sick?”

“I’ve never really thought about it,” Yuuki admitted. There was a holler from down in the gym as someone scored, the net in the hoop swishing, the ball thudding to the floor. “I thought you were lucky to have each other. You—you let someone find you, didn’t you? So Kamoshida would have an excuse to kick you guys off the team.”

“Yeah.” He toyed with a suspender; Yuuki had long since stopped caring about his, and it was always a surprise to see Komaki wear his properly. “God, what an asshole. Toma cried so damn much after that. The team was his life, but I couldn’t watch him do that to himself, didn’t want to watch him become one of those third-years who say it’ll all be worth it in the end. That bastard was pushing him when he knew he needed rest, so I told Toma I loved him too much to let him do that to himself. He’s a big damn crybaby, turns out. Cries at everything.”

He was still lucky. They had each other. Yuuki had no one.

“No, uh, this ain’t about Toma. I just—got sick of hiding it, I guess. Wound up telling my parents I was dating a guy.” He laughed, though it was dry, humorless. “Dad flipped the fuck out, told me he didn’t raise a faggot. I told him he didn’t raise me at all, so it wasn’t any of his business who I dated.”

He scuffed a shoe against the floor. Down in the gym someone was yelling for the ball; there was another cheer as the ball banged against the backboard, then a sigh as it rebounded right off.

“Mom didn’t really say anything until he started threatening to kick me out. She said I didn’t have anywhere to go and it wasn’t right to kick me out for it, and if he wanted grandkids so bad my sister can pick up the slack. She wants a big family. I just wanna be happy with Toma.”

“Well,” Yuuki said, searching for a positive. “At least your mom’s on your side?”

“She’s not,” Komaki said, simply. “She just doesn’t want to deal with the ramifications of kicking out her minor son. She’ll wait ‘til I’m twenty and then do it. She told me so herself. I think it’s ‘cause she thinks it’s all a phase and I’ll grow out of it before then, or I’ll decide that Toma’s not worth losing my family over. But, you know what?”

“What?”

“Toma’s family’s miles better than mine. They pulled him out of some backwater town when it got out he was gay and shit hit the fan. They moved across the damn country to help him find someplace that wasn’t shit. Turned out to be here. Tokyo’s more inclusive than some dump in the mountains, but it’s still bad.”

It was, Yuuki agreed. Everywhere was the same, in the end. People in power abusing it. People using their authority or status to get what they wanted. People just being rotten to the core.

They needed to change. Their hearts needed to change. Yuuki didn’t care if Komaki and Aizawa loved each other until next week or until the day they died; it was always going to be more than what Yuuki got. Why should anyone try to take that from them?

Was it because they thought they couldn’t be happy together? What did they know in the first place?

Yuuki groaned. “Damn it, now I’m mad for you guys.”

Komaki chuckled. “You, mad? No fucking way.”

“It’s true! It’s like—you’re lucky. You’re in love. I’ve never had that. Nobody’s ever fallen for me. And I don’t think anybody should take that from you, just because you love a guy. So—so if your family doesn’t like that, they shouldn’t matter. They just shouldn’t.”

“Never thought you’d care this much.”

“Neither did I.” If he thought too much about the details, it made his guts squirm. Two guys, in love. It was weird.

But Aizawa was a good volleyball player. Loving Komaki didn’t make him worse at it, the same way loving Aizawa didn’t make Komaki an entirely good person; he was still abrasive, still hard to deal with, just as he had been before getting kicked off the team.

So… it was weird, and Yuuki wasn’t all that comfortable with it, but it wasn’t wrong. It couldn’t be wrong.

( _Why couldn’t it be wrong?_ Yuuki thought, much later, but he didn’t know.)

Yuuki said, “You should tell Aizawa. He should know, shouldn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Komaki scuffed his shoe again. Down in the gym, someone shouted that class was almost over. Yuuki wasn’t sure who won. “I should. I’ll do it later. He won’t like it, but I really fucking should, shouldn’t I?”

“Yeah, I think you should,” Yuuki said.

Shoes on the floor squeaked as the players headed to the locker rooms to change. Komaki, with his head resting on his knees, said, “Hey, Mishima. Anyone ever tell you you’re pretty cool?”

Sakamoto had. Yuuki still didn’t understand why, and Sakamoto had explained it to his face. “A couple people have, yeah.”

“Only a couple?” Komaki snorted. “That’s a fucking crime.”

Yuuki shifted. So it wasn’t just Sakamoto who thought he was cool—but Yuuki had spent so much time as a loser that he didn’t know how to handle it. He’d always been a nobody.

“You think so?” he said.

“Mishima, I fucking know so,” Komaki said, and nudged his shoulder.

Heat pressed into him. It stayed there for hours, long after Komaki was gone and classes were over, like a brand telling him he was worthy of being a somebody.

The thought felt pretty good. Better than good, if he was being honest.

Yuuki couldn’t help but want more.

* * *

Hirotaka Mishima settled in at the bar, the late evening crowd a dull roar at his back. In Kichijoji the bars were nestled so close together he could order yakisoba at one and a beer at another without leaving his seat; he planned to do just that, shrugging off his suit jacket and loosening his tie all in one go.

Someone behind him asked, “Is this seat taken?”

A hand pointed to the empty stool next to him; he shook his head, too tired to talk.

Then he thought about Yuuki and ordered a water, too.

“Ahh, it’s hot,” muttered his new companion, who took a water, too. He scanned the menu, brushing unruly bangs out of his face. “What’s, ah, good here?”

“Anything,” Hirotaka grunted.

“O-oh,” said his companion, still staring at the menu.

Hirotaka sighed. One day he’d be doing this with Yuuki, he thought. Yuuki would need the guidance, too. “You a beer or shochu kind of guy?”

“Oh, um,” he laughed, “either is fine.”

“Beer, then,” Hirotaka said, and signaled Sudo behind the bar. “And edamame, since it’s hot out. It’ll take the edge off ‘til you’re home, at least. How do you feel about pickles?”

“Oh, they’re good.”

“Those too, then.”

Sudo went off with their order. Hirotaka turned to his companion, groping for the card case in his jacket pocket. The guy was young, no older than thirty, and he raked hair out of his face once more. The glasses perched on the end of his nose had fogged up in the early summer heat; he took them off, wiped them off with a handkerchief from his pocket, then shoved them back on. “Thank you for this. I’m still new to the area and haven’t learned my way around yet.”

In another ten years this foppish, sheepish young man could be his son. Hirotaka tried to remember that and extended a card. “It’s no trouble. Always good to meet someone new, even in places like this.”

He laughed again, took the card, fumbled for his own, still not used to it. He must have been fresh out of school, then. “It’s um, good to meet you… Mister Mishima.”

“Just Mishima’s fine.”

Hirotaka took the guy’s card—Takuto Maruki, Clinical Psychologist—and tucked it away. Maruki wore an ear-to-ear grin as he said, “And just Maruki is fine for me, too. I’m always _doctor_ to the kids and the other staff—it’s, ah, nice to be on equal footing with someone every once in a while.”

Their food came. Hirotaka sipped at his beer, then at his water, and tried to think of what Yuuki would be eating tonight. Not pickles and edamame in some crowded Kichijoji bar, that was for sure. “Kids?” he asked, once Maruki had the chance to taste the food. “You work with kids?”

“Only temporarily,” Maruki admitted. “I don’t want to get too much into it. It would violate their rights.”

“Ah.” Understanding shot through him: he’d gotten an email about a counselor Shujin had brought in after the Kamoshida incident. It hadn’t gone into details—that was what the news and online forums were for—but it hadn’t needed to. The school was doing its best to protect its students, their children. Maruki was just doing his job. “The Shujin kids, then. My son goes there.”

Although if he’d talked to a counselor, Hirotaka didn’t know.

“Oh, does he? Mishima’s such a common last name, I didn’t want to assume—”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” The bar was awfully crowded. There was raucous laughter from a group in a corner, blocking off the alley. No one heard him say, “He was on that damn team. If that’s not begging for trouble from a bunch of drunk hyenas, what is?”

Maruki let out a noise of agreement; they spent a while just eating, ordering more whenever the food started to run out. Karaage and yakitori; Maruki spent a while working his way through a small plate of cheese cubes (“It grows on you!”) while Hirotaka ate all the kimchi.

He really wondered what Yuuki was eating at home. If he was even home; if he wasn’t wandering the streets, terrified of being alone with his mother for too long. Hirotaka could still see the bruises on his arms; he could still hear the way Yuuki had begged him to be left alone.

 _What good am I as a father?_ he thought, not for the first time. He’d been more than useless for months. He’d certainly been useless then.

“Has he been alright? Your son,” Maruki asked. Sudo had given him a beer at some point, and he nursed it, contemplating taking a drink. “He hasn’t been by to see me, so I worry.”

“He hasn’t?”

“Ah, well, most of the boy’s team hasn’t,” he amended. “The captain has, and a few boys who were kicked off the team, but other than that, no. I can’t do my job if no one wants to see me, you know?”

“I do,” Hirotaka said. A doctor with no patients—some would call that a good thing, except none of these kids were in good enough mental health to skip free sessions. Maybe it was their pride talking. Maybe it was denial.

He’d found Yuuki on that stinking rooftop over a year ago, now. He should have known then. Yuuki had never ‘needed air’ before then.

But he should have known a lot of things, things Yuuki couldn’t or wouldn’t or didn’t want to tell him. He should have been able to tell. He was Yuuki’s goddamn father.

“Boys have always been trickier than girls in that regard,” Maruki went on. “They’re more likely to say nothing’s wrong—”

(“I told you, it’s just practice,” Yuuki said.)

“—and they’re more likely to believe it, too. Saying it reinforces that idea. We’re simple-minded creatures, us men.”

(“Just—let me get this post up?” Yuuki said. “It shouldn’t take long.”

But then he spent the rest of the night on that damn computer, on that damn site. Hirotaka, too much of a coward to stop him, let him.)

Maruki chuckled. “At this rate, I won’t be able to do much. I—I want to. I want to help them. They’re just kids in bad circumstances, and they need to know they can trust adults. But…”

“They can’t,” Hirotaka said.

“I—sorry?”

“They can’t trust adults.” He swiped a finger through the condensation on his glass, touched it to his neck, where the chill sat like a burn. “You must have watched the news. That—that coach dragged those kids through hell for years. He broke a child’s leg just to get his team disbanded, just because he could. They tried, for years, to tell us something was wrong, but we didn’t listen.”

(Yuuki, sitting at the dinner table, picking at his food. “I, um, don’t feel very good.”

“But you’ve got a game tomorrow, don’t you?” someone asked. Hirotaka, or Hiyoko, or them both, at different points in time. “You can’t miss that!”

Yuuki, nodding along, his face falling. Maybe he really was sick—but maybe he was tired, too. Tired of that coach and his practices. Tired of whatever the hell was going on in them. Tired of his own parents all but forcing him to keep going.)

“That’s certainly true, but—”

“No buts,” Hirotaka said. “It’s the truth. We can’t sit here and try to make excuses for it. They can’t trust us and we’ve given them no reason to.”

Maruki sighed. He slumped over the bar, staring at the beer left in his glass. His cheeks were tinged pink; just Hirotaka’s luck to wind up with a lightweight, though it was odd. He’d been fine a minute ago. “I just want them to trust _me_ , then,” he said, only slightly slurring it. “I want them to have a… a bright future. Just the kind they must have dreamed of having when they were still just… kids, instead of kids on the cusp of adulthood, having to worry about the future, dreading growing up and becoming just like their parents. They don’t want to just… live for their work, Mishima.”

“No one does. You either love it from the beginning or you learn to take pride in what you do.”

“Do you take pride in what you do?”

He waved Sudo over, paid, then ordered that yakisoba from the bar behind him. Sudo scowled, but didn’t say anything; no one ordered his yakisoba unless the other shops were out. He always burned the noodles and skimped on the sauce.

“Do you?” he fired back, once Sudo came back with his change and the noodles were heaped in front of them. Maruki stared at his, as if hoping the answers to all his problems could be found in the arrangement of bamboo shoots.

“I do,” Maruki said, picking at the noodles. “I’ve helped so many people. I want to help more of them. It’s my dream to see a world where no one has to suffer under doubt and fear and insecurity. Do you have a dream, Mishima?”

Either he’d forgotten his earlier question or he was taking Hirotaka’s non-answer as an answer all its own, which was fine. Hirotaka wasn’t sure what his answer would have been in the first place and didn’t want to dwell on it.

But this one. Everyone had a dream, even lowly salarymen like himself. “Maybe I did,” he sighed, “but I’ve forgotten what it was. Now, I just want to be a good father. A better one. But it’s hard, trying to find the line between too strict and too lenient, especially after I spent so long ignoring it all…”

Ignoring his duties as a father. Sure he’d put bread on the table, but if Yuuki wasn’t eating it, what was the point? And if Yuuki was miserable enough to practically beg them for sick days, that was even worse. It was no wonder Yuuki was pushing him away now, now that he was finally trying to be better: he’d had his freedom for so long, been left by himself for so _long_ … Trying to impose a single rule was going to be like pulling teeth. Yuuki would fight him. Yuuki would want to fight him.

Because he was a no good, goddamned adult, just like the rest of them.

Maruki sighed, staring glumly at his nearly-empty glass. “Teens are difficult. Sometimes all they need is space and they’ll come to you when they’re ready. Sometimes they’ll avoid you because they believe you won’t understand, and you have to chase them down to prove you’re serious about understanding them.”

“In other words, if I’ve pushed and gotten nothing, I should just leave him be?”

That didn’t sound right. Nothing would change. How would Hirotaka prove his sincerity then?

But he hadn’t exactly pushed, had he? A conversation or two asking Yuuki to talk to him wasn’t pushing, was it?

“Ah, that’s the hard part,” Maruki said, devouring his noodles with a single-mindedness only the slightly tipsy possessed. “They also need affirmation. A… reassurance that you’re there and willing to listen. Sometimes they need a lot of that; sometimes they don’t need so much. Sometimes no matter what you say, they shut you out, and sometimes no matter how hard they talk, you won’t understand.”

No, he supposed not. Hirotaka might not have wanted to throw himself off a building—dear God, he hoped he was wrong about that—but there were thousands of other ways Yuuki could talk past him, thousands of different ways of thinking that were just emerging out of the woodwork of society as people looked all around them at everything they’d built up and screamed _no_.

No, Hirotaka wouldn’t understand a thing to do with any of that new-age mumbo-jumbo. But he could try, couldn’t he? It was the least he could do, to meet Yuuki wherever he was, to try and understand him even a bit more.

“And if I want to understand?” Hirotaka asked.

Maruki looked at him, still as glum as ever, noodles dangling from his chopsticks. “Do you really want to?”

“He’s my son.” It was the only reason he had. If he lost Yuuki, what had he been living for the past twenty years? Making a tidy profit for his company? What a sad existence. What a paltry life.

“Even if you don’t like what he has to say?”

“He’s my son.” Unless he was one of those—what were they? They were boys, but thought they were girls, or wanted to be. Not like the drag queens in Shinjuku, but it was close. Probably.

“You might think that way now—”

“It won’t change,” Hirotaka declared. “He’s my son. Nothing will ever change that. And because he’s my son, because I’m his father, because we’re _family_ —we have to try to understand each other. This—this rift I’ve let grow between us, I’ve got to bridge that however I can.”

The big group in the corner finally got up and left, leaving a mound of plates and cups behind. Though all of them had to be some manner of drunk, they supported each other as they staggered down the alley to the station.

He wanted to do that with Yuuki one day. Hold him up even when he stumbled, support him even when his feet threatened to slip out from under him, pull him up when he fell.

“Well,” said Maruki, his face well and truly flushed now, despite drinking only half a beer. It could have been giddiness; here was a psychologist, bereft of patients to help, running into a stranger at the bar in desperate need of his expertise—and Hirotaka had paid for his meal. The man didn’t look like numbers meant anything to him at the moment.

And as he talked, he proved it. What came out of his mouth was a jumble of terms Hirotaka couldn’t begin to understand—but it was a start. If he could understand this, maybe he could understand Yuuki. Maybe he wouldn’t have to lose him after all.

Maybe, with this, they could finally begin to understand each other.


	8. Justice, Rank 4

Goro stared at the machines. There were so many he focused on the one right in front of him, some kind of ancient pinball machine worked with levers. “Akira,” he said.

Akira was somewhere behind him, getting change from a different machine. A change machine.

He was a _detective_ , damn it all.

“Yes?” Akira asked, scraping coins into his pocket.

“Why are we here?”

“Because a certain someone told me he’s never been to an arcade before.”

“That doesn’t mean I wanted to visit one.”

The lights, the noise—he felt pulled in a thousand different directions. He should have just ignored Akira’s message. He should have known this was coming.

He was a detective. How did any of Akira’s thought processes elude him?

“What a shame, you’re in one now,” Akira said. With his hands in his pockets and shoulders slumped, he actually looked harmless. Goro knew better.

Standing in front of him was a Phantom Thief.

Standing in front of him was a savior, an emperor.

… Standing in front of him was Goro’s own hero.

He sighed, daring another glance at the machines. Pinball in the back, the newer, fancier games up front by the windows, where anyone passing by could stroll on in for a quick game. Dance Dance Rebellion and Gun About in the middle, eating up floor space with sensor mats and platforms; a pair of racing games, their seats reclined and, Goro guessed, covered in layers of dried sweat.

“See anything you want to try?”

Akira was trying to keep his promise, Goro thought. He was trying to be Goro’s friend, and that meant trying out new things, things Goro never thought he’d have the chance to do… and in a not-so-clever disguise courtesy of Akira, no one would know it was him at a glance. He could be just another teenager for a while. He could be someone worthy of Akira’s time.

Goro marched up front, Akira jangling behind him, his pockets so laden with change he would drown if Goro tossed him in the bay. He would find a way to crawl back up to the surface, however; it was just what he did, defying every expectation placed upon him to do whatever he pleased.

Goro chose an out-of-the-way set of fighting games. He fiddled with the controls as Akira fed change into the machines, asking, “You know how to play?”

“Of course not,” Goro stated, “but I don’t believe I’ll need you to teach me.”

He did, though Akira wasn’t much better; by their fifth game Goro had gotten the hang of the controls, figured out a few of the combos, and was giving Akira a run for his money.

He wasn’t winning, but he wasn’t losing by so great a margin that his pride couldn’t take it.

When he got bored with that, they went around to the other machines: different fighting games; Martian Invaders; Pac-Mon; the pair of racing games. Akira took a turn at dancing while Goro sipped at some water and watched, and by that time a sizable crowd was in the arcade, milling about in groups, watching each other play games. Most of them were young. The oldest was a man in his forties, steadily feeding the Gun About machine change. Goro wound up watching him run about a map, taking next to no damage despite running headfirst into several bombs, grenades, and gunshots.

“He’s cheating,” Akira muttered, done with his game.

“Is he? It’s so hard to tell.”

Akira snorted laughter, groped for his bottle of water, and sucked down half of it. “It’s the only one we haven’t tried yet. You want to give it a go?”

“I get plenty of experience at the range,” Goro said. But the way the man was blantantly cheating pissed him off. There were kids watching him, starry-eyed, fully expectant that one day they could play like that, too.

As if.

(As if Goro could talk.)

“But, yes, I think that would round out our trip nicely.”

Akira hummed. He counted out the last of his change, fed a few bills to the change machine, and returned. They watched the cheater play for another solid hour, the crowd around him ebbing like the tide. He left only when his change ran dry, leaving Goro to stare at the controller he’d been using.

Akira took it up, grimacing at the sweat coating the trigger. He wiped it off with his shirt.

Goro stood back. The arcade was ripe with the smell of stale sweat, recirculated air, and a faint whiff of flowery perfume. He thought of a plastic bottle, tucked away into a box for safekeeping, and took up the other controller.

“I need only aim and shoot, correct?” he asked. Simple enough.

“Yeah,” Akira told him. “The game moves the characters for us. No need to think about where to go, just… aim and shoot, like you said.”

“Since it’s the last game, how about we make a wager?”

“Loser buys dinner. Sound good?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Goro said, though he was already imagining what he’d ask for: sushi, the _good_ kind, the kind that would put Akira into a financial hole. Goro had been dreaming of it for years, ever since one of his foster parents saved up all their monthly stipends for raising him to treat themselves. He hadn’t been invited, and he supposed it was a good thing the social worker hadn’t, either.

“What, you don’t get paid doing that internship of yours?”

“It’s an internship, not a job.” Though he did make an awful lot of money doing Shido’s dirty work—not that Akira needed to know that. He sniffed; Akira scrolled through one menu, then another. The kids were back, standing off to the side. One of them was halfway to awed already, while the other stared, impassively, ready to be bored. Those types were always the most fun to impress.

The game, ready to start, flashed through a quick cinematic—these were the bad guys, here were your heroes, complete the mission—and counted down. Goro took aim at the screen, blinked—

—and the game was over.

Akira panted like a bellows beside him. Goro shook out his shoulder, then his arm; blood flowed back into his fingers, setting them to pins and needles. He had to pry the controller out of his hand, then did a double take at Akira’s stance, at his hands gripping the gun like it was a chicken he was trying to strangle—

(Goro would know, as he’d done so, once or twice, with another foster family.)

—and at his eyes, wide behind those ridiculous glasses slipping halfway down his nose. He was focused on the screen giving a breakdown of their scores, but all Goro could see was the bent elbows, the shaking knees, the curling shoulders.

 _This_ was the leader of the Phantom Thieves? The ones terrorizing most of Tokyo?

He shoved the controller back in its holder, vaguely aware of the crowd around them. Most of them were taking pictures of his score—there was no way it could be worse than Akira’s, not with the amount of time Goro spent at the range—and chattering. Always chattering. Goro tuned it all out, ears pricked for his name, as he turned and leveled his nastiest scowl. “Do tell me that’s not your best.”

“Um,” Akira said, trying to put his own controller back and missing the holder several times. “It is? I mean—uh, it is, but you know. We all have our strengths.”

And Akira’s strength had been in cowering behind his guard, waiting for the ideal moment to unleash a nasty blast of Song Magic. Goro’s had been equally destructive with only a few quick words—but that was cheating. It was just another boon Zill gave him before sending him off to do her bidding, tool that he was.

Goro bit back the urge to scoff all the same, then finally stole a glance at his score. It was second-highest, right below a player named **KING** , off by only a few points. He clicked his tongue.

It was just a game—what did it matter what his score was? But after losing at nearly everything else, he’d wanted this to be the one game he dominated. He had practice. He had far more practice than Akira, with his terrible stance and shaky handling.

“Mister,” said one of the boys, breathless with awe, “was that—was that your first time playing?”

Goro looked at him—big, wide eyes; a missing front tooth; several stains on the sleeves of his striped shirt. No more than seven or eight—nine, if Goro was being generous. No older than Goro had been when his mother died.

“It was,” he said, because that child could have been him, in some other universe, one where shitty adults like Shido and Makishima didn’t exist. One where Goro and his mother had plenty of money, and he had some to spare to go to the arcade on the weekend or after school.

“You almost beat the King!” exclaimed his friend, the bored-looking one from before. Snot was dripping from his nose from excitement, and he had a well-used handkerchief in hand.

“Yeah! You looked really cool, Mister!”

“Did I?”

“That was the hardest level!” The boy swiped at his nose; half of it wound up on his arm, and Goro grimaced. “Nobody can beat it ‘cept that cheater and the King! And—and you beat it, first try!”

His friend nodded. Goro stole a look over his shoulder at Akira and his mediocre score—right in the middle, where he belonged—and Akira looked away, pretending to examine a poster on the far wall for an old arcade game. Something about burgers. Goro looked back at the kids, back at their shining, adoring faces, and said, “Oh, I see. I’m afraid my friend here didn’t bother to tell me. Perhaps he thought it was a good prank, hm?”

The kids giggled, grins wide. Then Goro said, “And I believe I remember seeing you before, when that cheater was playing. We didn’t happen to steal your turn, did we?”

“No!” they protested, shaking their heads. The one with the handkerchief said, “We got bored watching, so we went to play air hockey, and when we came back you guys were starting! It’s our fault for leaving!”

His friend nodded, bangs flopping into his eyes. The crowd, growing bored, dispersed.

“Would you like a turn now, then?”

Their faces fell. “We used up all our money on the air hockey table,” they admitted. “So… we can’t play. But it was nice watching you, Mister.”

Goro rocked back on his heels, thinking of sitting alone in the house, afraid to move, afraid to go down to the kitchen to make himself some food. He’d wanted pancakes back then, thin and slightly burnt like Mama made them, with too much butter and cheap syrup or honey drizzled over the top. He thought of answering the door at his social worker’s knock, and finding out that the money his fosters were supposed to be spending on him was now sitting in their bellies. He still went a little green at the price.

“Akira,” he said, “how much change do you have left?”

“Enough for another game,” Akira said. He scuffed a shoe on the platform. “I, uh, didn’t think we’d win that one. Planned for another.”

“Well, there you go,” Goro told the kids. “One last game. Akira’s treat.”

“Hey!” Akira complained, at the same time the kids exclaimed, “Really?”

“Yes, really. No complaining from the loser, Akira.”

Akira groaned, but there was no heat to it. He was acting for the kids’ sake, hamming it up to make it a far bigger deal than it actually was as he fed coins into the machine. The kids scrambled onto the platform, taking up controllers that were almost as tall as they were, craning their necks to see the screen. Goro crouched down and watched them flip through menus, choosing maps and characters and guns.

… He didn’t remember choosing a gun, but knowing Akira, he’d chosen the most difficult one on purpose.

He fed them advice once the game started. “You don’t need to move it too much,” he told the boy in the striped shirt as he flailed his controller. His friend had better control, but his hands shook with the weight of the controller until Akira crouched down and supported his arms. “Since the enemies come to you, just wait for them to appear, then shoot. It doesn’t matter if it misses. Fixing your aim is a matter of millimeters, not inches.”

All through the game, he sat back, trying to see it the way they did: the enemies larger and taller, their heads as far away as the clouds, the heaviness of the guns in their hands. Real guns were heavier. Goro liked to think it was the weight of responsibility.

(He knew it was the weight of guilt. Of taking and taking and taking until there was nothing left to take, the bodies piled around him like so many discarded toys. To that artificial body, they hadn’t even stunk.)

By the time the game was over, Goro’s knees ached. Akira traded high-fives with both of the kids, then bemoaned his loss of fortieth place; he’d been bumped down to forty-two, the kids sitting easy in the thirties. The kid with the striped shirt’s score screen scrolled to the top, though, and Goro froze at the name there: **NERO**.

He leveled a glare at Akira, who shrugged.

The kid turned, his grin wide; Goro struggled to match it. “Mister Nero, do you think you’ll come back and fight that cheater?”

“Or the King?” his friend asked, eyes lit with excitement.

“Ah, well,” Goro said. He couldn’t just say no, could he? But he was so busy—just taking some time off to goof around with Akira all day had been an exercise in endurance. He’d done half of next week’s assignments in one night, forgoing food and the long bath he’d wanted to take.

He looked to Akira again. He was always better with people, and with children; but this time he shrugged, spinning his last coin across his knuckles. The twitch of his lips told Goro he was on his own, and Akira would enjoy whatever lies spewed forth, because there was no way Goro could say no, not to adoring fans. Especially not to adoring fans who didn’t care that he was Goro Akechi.

“Maybe,” he told them. He rubbed an ear; he’d forgotten that Akira had tied his hair up, and the wisps falling about his ears were distracting. It was maddening. “I, ah, would certainly like to—”

“Really?!” they both exclaimed, their voices so loud they hurt his ears. Goro winced, but they didn’t notice over their excited chatter; Akira chuckled.

The kids chattered all the way to the station, where they thankfully had to part. Goro checked the time, checked the train schedule, let Akira pull him to the Shibuya line. With the crush of traffic the cars were sweltering; Goro shut his eyes to the drained faces of the passengers around him and envisioned sushi: perfectly plump fatty tuna; delicate yellowtail; unforgiving unagi.

But Akira pulled him toward a different line, to a different part of Tokyo. Definitely not where the fine sushi restaurants were located, he realized, as they got off in some dingy station, to dingy streets, ones currently embraced in a downpour. Akira clicked his tongue at the sight, checked his phone. “It didn’t say it was going to rain tonight,” he muttered.

“Akira,” Goro said, finding his voice as the taste of sushi turned sour in his mouth, “where are we?”

Akira looked at him. “We’re getting dinner. My treat, because I lost.”

“I—I see.”

He couldn’t help it. One look at the street, at the torrents of water cascading down gutters and awnings like waterfalls, made him realize no restaurant was going to let them in. He certainly wouldn’t.

Akira bumped his shoulder. He watched other passengers go by, watched them tug up their umbrellas and huddle under them, braving the rain. He said, “Sorry I can’t afford anything—well, nicer. You’d be surprised at how expensive keeping a cat can be.”

“Perhaps you should treat me some other time, then.”

That prompted a snort. “In ten years, maybe, if you want something fancy. In the meantime you’ll hold it over my head, and I prefer to pay my debts off early.”

“Do you, now,” Goro muttered.

“One day we’ll have a great, big, fancy party,” Akira said, voice going soft, almost blending in with the rain. “We’ll have all the best food Tokyo offers. Sushi, cake, meat—you name it, we’ll have it. But right now we’re just kids, so we have to make do.”

Goro thought of frequently skipped meals. Even now, when he had the means to provide himself with better food, he still skipped, still skimped, still went without. He would force an apple down his throat at lunch, just to say he’d eaten. A cup of oatmeal left to soak overnight in the fridge for breakfast—if he remembered to put it out, if he didn’t oversleep and rush out the door. Hunger should have been an old friend by now, but it wasn’t.

And he’d read somewhere that rich food hit an empty, abused stomach like his wrong. He had to work himself up to it, or the fine cuisine would wind up flushed down a toilet.

“Alright,” he said, and sighed. Perhaps his dreams would always be just that: dreams. “But you still haven’t said where we’re going.”

“Why? You want to post about it?”

“Perhaps.” If it was good, he’d do it justice. Small, family-owned diners and restaurants were the only reason he was fed some days, before he’d gotten his power and started working under Shido. They always had scraps to hand out, especially to gaunt children like he’d once been.

Akira squinted, trying to see past the rain. If anything, it was falling even harder. “Do you want to—”

“No, I do not want to brave that.”

It would make his careful makeup run. The last thing he wanted Akira to know was that he was ashamed of himself, of the face his mother gave him—but Akira had to know that appearances were everything for a celebrity. One blemish and it was all over.

… But right now he wasn’t Goro Akechi. He was just Goro, Akira’s friend. Some nobody kid following the trend, growing his hair out to be like the Detective Prince’s. And if he thought about it some more, the bill of the cap would block most of the rain—if he ducked his head and let Akira lead him along.

He didn’t want to. This was a notorious Phantom Thief. Goro had every reason to view everything Akira did and said as suspicious, but he also had every reason not to.

Damn it all.

“But I suppose I’ll have to, if dinner’s on the other side,” Goro ceded. He snagged a fistful of Akira’s shirt, tugging his cap down low.

He couldn’t see the face Akira made, but it might have been proud, or coy, or some mixture of the two. Akira took up his hand and dashed out onto the street and into the rain; within seconds Goro was soaked to the bone, his shoes squelching as they filled up with water. His ratty old sneakers weren’t suited for the rain—but nothing else he owned was, either. Everything was either too fine or too old to be much good against the puddles Akira kept leading him into, but the water was warm against his skin.

He tried not to think of the bacteria swimming inside each puddle, tried not think of greasy, oily street water soaking into his feet. He tried very hard.

Then they burst into a building.

“Wha—” said the shopkeeper, as Akira left Goro by the door to bound up the stairs in the back. He took one look at Goro, dripping like a drowned rat on his floor, and back to the stairs. Akira rummaged about with much more noise than Goro thought one boy was capable of, but an indignant shout as Akira disturbed whoever was up there proved him wrong.

Was—was he robbing the place? Was Goro an accomplice somehow? Did he know that Goro suspecting him of being a Phantom Thief?

 _Don’t be silly_ , Goro told himself. He locked eyes with the shopkeep, tried to smile, and failed. “Um,” he said.

“Kid!” the shopkeep bellowed, and Goro supposed it was a good thing the shop was empty.

Akira’s “Sorry, Boss!” was muffled, but there, and then he was racing back down the stairs, a bag in one hand. He was dragged into the kitchen behind the bar, and from there all Goro could hear was a hissed conversation.

Kid. Boss. So Akira knew the shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper knew him—but what was the bag for, then? Some kind of work uniform he could change into to get out of his wet clothes? What was Goro supposed to do, then? Sit and shiver and catch a cold?

Movement on the stairs caught his eye. A tuxedo cat with bright blue eyes stared at him from one of the steps, its yellow collar a bright spot against the gloom and shadow. It skirted a puddle left from Akira’s mad dash and sighed, just as a person would.

“Gross,” it muttered, tucking its tail over its legs. “Can’t you be a little more considerate? I was having the nicest dream—”

Goro shut his eyes. The cat wasn’t talking. The cat couldn’t be talking. Talking cats did not exist.

“—and then you come up and just—barge into it, like a barbarian—”

It could be a robot. One with a very, very advanced AI that sounded human, like Akira’s old guardian. Yes, that was it.

“—no, like _Skull_ , that pea-for-brains. I thought you, of all people, would be better than this—”

Or not. Skull. Goro heard that name before, when he’d stumbled into the Phantom Thieves wandering about the Metaverse. There had been a strange, cat-like thing with them. It had transformed into a car, and Goro had not been jealous.

It sighed one last time, then noticed Goro, standing by the door. “Oh, hello! How rude of me not to greet a guest. But don’t you worry, I stay up in the attic while Boss is in business. Wouldn’t want him to get closed down, you know? … Oh, but, you’re all wet. I don’t know if he’ll let you stay like that…”

“Talkative, isn’t he,” said the shopkeeper as he returned, Akira slinking behind him. They rounded the bar, the shopkeeper with a rag in hand and Akira with his bag. He hauled Goro back out onto the street, down another alley, past a laundromat sitting silent in the downpour, and into a bathhouse. They wrestled their shoes off at the entrance, and Goro grimaced at the feeling of dry slippers on his wet feet.

“Would you like your things dried while you bathe?” asked the receptionist, and though Goro was opposed, Akira paid for it anyway.

“Was this your plan all along?” Goro asked, standing in his wet clothes in the changing room, an attendant waiting on the other side of the door. His skin was clammy, and he couldn’t stop shivering in the blast of cold air surrounding them, but even still, he had his pride.

Leave it to Akira to find a way.

“Uh, no,” Akira said, stripping off his socks. His bag was shoved into a basket; Goro saw the handle of an umbrella poking out. “That’s kind of why I paid for it. You gonna take those off, or are you trying to catch a cold?”

“That really wouldn’t do, but…”

He didn’t want Akira to see. All the scars, all the blemishes, all the minor, idiotic imperfections… When he lived inside a doll’s body, his skin had been smooth, perfect. There hadn’t been the need to hide anything.

But it was Akira, whose past ran in fits and starts down his back: tiny acne scars, and stretch marks from growing too quickly, and a series of bruises along his ribs. Normal, everyday things.

So, why…?

Akira, catching onto his hesitation, hummed. “I don’t mind going on ahead and waiting, but you need to get out of those and warm up. Just give the basket to the attendant, okay?”

He slid it over, his clothes piled neatly on one side of the basket. Goro inspected a spot of mud on the hems of his pants. “Alright,” he said.

And Akira nodded, leaving him be.

Goro sank onto a seat. This was incredibly stupid. He and Akira bathed together all the time, after remaking Ra Ciela. Prim always whined she couldn’t join them; her mother argued over and over that she wasn’t just a Genom, she was a girl.

Prim didn’t care. Prim didn’t care, so why should Goro?

It was still a hard fight to peel off his socks. His feet were red and aching; he curled his toes into the floor and watched them go white and bloodless. That was worse.

He shimmied out of his pants, trying not to focus on the bruises on his calves—from running, and biking, and bouldering, he could say—or the scars. He could say the same for those; even runners fell on occasion, and bouldering was a dangerous enough sport. There was no reason for Akira not to believe it.

But his arms—he didn’t know how to explain the smattering of freckles on his shoulders, or the line of old cigarette burns from a foster parent, or the jagged scar running up his arm, cutting across his elbow. He didn’t remember getting it, only the aftermath: a hospital and the tug of stitches and his social worker’s irate gaze. He hadn’t seen her after that, so it must have been something he did.

If that was true. If he could believe it.

It took him ten minutes to strip everything off, another five as the attendant took the basket and gave him the wipes he asked for, and another five of sitting there like a lump for Goro to finally make his way to the bathing area.

Akira was, of course, already in the bath. He scratched at a bug bite on his neck but didn’t turn around as the door slid open. “We should expect our things back in twenty to thirty minutes,” Goro said, although his chatter fell like a weight in the silence. He washed off quickly, and was glad for the steam as he joined the bath.

On the roof, the rain poured a steady drum. Between that and the water and the late night he pulled just to have this, he was tired. Exhausted.

“Wish it rained more in the spring, when I got here,” Akira mumbled, voice low. “Would’ve been nice, having this. It’s like a lullaby.”

Goro hummed. He wrote plenty of lullabies back on Ra Ciela, ones with low, soothing tones and lyrics that didn’t matter. “You didn’t sleep well back then?”

“I think that mattress is older than Boss, so no.”

“Perhaps you should be saving some of your hard-earned money for that, then.” That was what Goro did. His first big purchase with his blood money: a decent bed to sleep on, as if assassins like him deserved sleep.

“No point,” Akira said, tilting his head back. “I’m only here another… six months, give or take. I’ve handled it this long, I think I can make it.”

“You might be able to, but your back won’t thank you for it.”

“Trust me, I know.”

They lapsed into silence. There were dozens of topics Goro could choose from to talk about, to fill the silence: Medjed’s threat, made just the day before; Akira’s no doubt looming finals; whatever they were going to have for dinner. Goro hoped it was good, whatever it was, and it seemed like a safe enough topic, but what came out of his mouth was, “It’s funny. I just remembered my mother used to send me to bathhouses much like this one all the time.”

“All the time?”

“Very nearly,” Goro said. “Whenever she had a client to bring home, she’d call ahead and tell me to use the money in the shoe box. I did it so often I even memorized the amount. Five hundred thirty-five yen, six hundred thirty-five if I wanted a drink after. I never wanted a drink after. It was money we needed.”

It was strange, too, how the smell of the closet was ingrained in his mind: mothballs and must and something sharper, cleaner, like leather, except Mama never wore leather. It might have been her shoes. He couldn’t be sure anymore.

Akira’s hand brushed his under the water. “Do you still miss her?”

“Every damn day,” Goro breathed. He tugged his hand back, but could tell Akira’s lingered, like the white-hot fingers of a brand, so close to searing his skin. “And I’d ask you what you’re doing, but you’re a thrice-damned fool if I’ve ever met one. It’s been years, and you think I still need comfort?”

“Do you?”

“No.” He had his mother’s bone resting safe with the dolls and her photos. Every so often he dragged them out of hiding, aware that too much time spent in the sun would dull the vibrancy of the ink, would steal the sheen from the cloth—and when those, too, were run down to nothing, what would he have left?

Akira chuckled, as if he didn’t believe him, but said, “Alright. You know I’m here, Goro. I won’t let you be alone again, I swear it.”

“Don’t be stupid, making promises you have no intention of keeping,” Goro spat. Most people would be taken aback; Akira only laughed longer. “I mean it! You’re going to find that insufferable boyfriend of yours, and you’re going to be an insufferable couple together, and you’re going to forget about the rest of the world, me included.”

“I won’t.”

The rain drummed harder. Was that laughter he heard, from the changing room? “What makes you so sure?”

“Because even when I was happy, even when I had everything I ever wanted, I knew I still had a duty to fulfill. An obligation to my friends. It would have been easy, staying asleep, living my days out with Yuuki, dreaming until the day Zill swallowed up the universe. But my friends needed me more, and we both knew that.”

Goro sniffed, and scratched at an itch on his cheek. He dared a glance at Akira: eyes half-lidded, a soft smile full of nostalgia on his face. It made him look softer, younger.

It made Goro’s stomach roil. Here, already, was proof he wasn’t needed or wanted. Akira was a Phantom Thief, and Goro was the detective who was supposed to catch him, in the end. Shido’s schemers were still fuzzy on the details, but all of Akira’s accomplices and friends would be caught in the end, too, and then they’d all rot in prison together.

Except for Goro. Goro, who felt more like a traitor with every breath. It burned in his lungs like acid. Like smoke and fire and searing heat.

Well, he wouldn’t have to live with it much longer.

Akira said, “That’s how I know we’ll stay friends, Goro. No matter how much you pull away, I won’t let you. ciel ih-cyen yan-soy-i; No one can take that from us.” His mouth quirked. “And I’m a very stubborn person myself. If you never want to meet any of my new friends, I’ll accept that. We can hang out, just the two of us.”

“And you’ll be insufferable the entire time, I’m sure.”

“One of us has to be.”

He stretched, arms curling above his head. He was definitely different from their time on Ra Ciela, a little more relaxed, a little less insistent. He was happy enough with where they were—for right now. Eventually he’d want to pry Goro open. Eventually Goro would have to divulge every secret, every wish, every damn thought in his head to make Akira happy.

 _ **You wouldn’t feel so much shame if you weren’t working against him**_ , Robin Hood said.

 _ **He’s a thief**_ , hissed Loki. Goro could almost see him snapping his teeth with anger. _**What will he do with the truth? You can’t trust him. You can’t trust anyone.**_

Goro tilted his own head back, letting it rest on the edge of the tub. Loki was right: if he ever spoke the truth, Akira would try to stop him. Akira always tried to stop him. Akira thought he knew what was best for everyone—or he knew enough to stop them from doing what was obviously bad for them, and Goro didn’t want to be stopped. He wanted that worthless man to taste fear and despair for the first time in his disgusting, miserable life. He wanted that man to look him in the eye and tremble as Goro raised his gun.

He still wasn’t sure who he would shoot first.

“Damn it, it’s hot,” Akira muttered. Sweat rolled down his temple.

That was right: he’d been in the bath long before Goro joined him. “You could go check on our things, if you like.”

Akira hummed, like he was going to complain, but then groaned. He got up, told Goro to take his time, and left.

Goro stared at the ceiling for an obscene amount of time, listening to the rain drum on the roof, to Akira in the changing room. The song from Jazz Jin echoed through his mind, and he hummed along for a few short bars. The water steamed, but he barely felt it. He’d always favored the heat; it was why the old geezers at that long-distant bathhouse liked him so much. He liked his baths hot.

But, while he wanted to enjoy this one for as long as he could, Akira was waiting. Whatever their dinner was going to be was waiting, too, and Goro had never gone so long without some kind of food. After a few more minutes of dithering, he rejoined Akira in the changing room. The attendant had cleaned up all the mud and water they’d tracked in, and Goro’s clothes were dry, down to the hat he’d worn at the arcade. He stared for a while at the hair tie, deliberating whether to pull it back up. It wasn’t quite long enough that he could get all of it pulled back, and the few strands that escaped had bothered him to no end during their games, but…

No one had recognized him, and all because he’d worn his hair differently and put a hat on. People were strange, vapid things who got too comfortable with what was familiar—like his face, the one he showed on television, the one framed by all that shaggy hair—and didn’t try to look past the unfamiliar for something that was. Not even the attendants recognized him like this.

He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.

Once Goro changed they gave the attendants their apologies for causing such a mess. Someone had dried his shoes while they were in the bath, and Goro despaired at stepping through more puddles until Akira pointed out the shoe coverings in the corner, slipping some over his own.

They got back to the shop with minimal exposure to the rain, huddling under Akira’s umbrella like a pair of lovers, slipping through the door, left unlocked despite the lights all being off.

“Go ahead and take a seat. This shouldn’t take long.” Akira moved through the place like he owned it, navigating around the bar and the kitchen with only the scant light coming in from the street to guide him. He banged about as Goro took a seat at the counter, trying to read the menu over the bar and the labels on the jars of coffee beans and finding himself staring at a painting of a woman by the door. It was _Sayuri_ , he was sure, but with a difference that made it worthless to potential collectors.

He wondered if it was a forgery, or a bad copy—but Akira was Phantom Thief, and Madarame had been one of his targets. It was entirely possible this was the true form of that painting, before the old man came along and ruined it like he ruined so many others.

Which all but settled it: Madarame’s last student was a Phantom Thief. Akira would never keep a painting like this for himself. He would try and return it to the owner, or to family, and only those who knew of the Metaverse would understand where it came from.

So, three confirmed Thieves, right under Goro’s nose: Akira, the cat no doubt sleeping upstairs, and Yusuke Kitagawa.

“You like it?” Akira asked, coming back out of the kitchen with plates in both hands. He flipped the bar lights on with an elbow, set the plates down, then started reaching for jars.

“I do. It’s very lovely. But, ah, what are you doing?”

“Making us coffee. Unless you don’t want any?”

He did like coffee. It got him through some of the commutes home, and through his commutes in the mornings, but Akira didn’t need to know that. “I’d love some. You prepare the beans yourself?”

“You want to watch?”

Goro wanted to ask if it was really all right for them to be there—in the dark, in the rain, without the shopkeeper around—but didn’t. If Akira and the shopkeeper were acquainted enough that he kept spare umbrellas up in the attic, he must work there. The shopkeeper trusted him, and more than Goro did.

But he didn’t ask. He only said, “Of course, I’d love to. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing it made right in front of me.”

Because the instant coffee at the station didn’t count.

Akira chuckled. He measured out a cup or two of beans and poured them into a grinder. Like the rain, the slow grind of it was soothing. “It’s not that different from the instant stuff, in the end. Tastes a lot better though.”

“And all this time I’ve been dragging you out to other cafes while you’ve hidden this from me?”

“Maybe I wanted to perfect it a little more. I’m still a rookie. Nowhere near Boss’s level.”

He wanted to ask how long it had been since Akira began working here. Not that long, probably. “As long as you don’t pour it over rice, we’ll be fine.”

Akira snorted. “He had a point.”

“He may have had a point, but that doesn’t excuse the waste of perfectly good coffee.”

Goro tried it himself, on days when he was too busy to sit down and enjoy a meal. It was not food, and didn’t deserve to be called that.

But after a while, watching the water boil became boring. He turned his attention to the plates on the bar: two large, two medium. The large ones held curry with rice; the medium ones held… “Are these pancakes?”

Akira nodded. “Banana-cranberry pancakes, since I couldn’t get the mille-feuille down pat. Kanon made it seem so easy, you know?”

“She did, but… why make them? The deal was for dinner.”

“And I’m treating you to dinner,” Akira said, pouring the coffee into cups. “That curry’s Leblanc’s specialty. The pancakes are mine, since a certain someone didn’t want to do anything for his birthday this year.”

Goro poked at them with a fork. They were thick, and fluffy, and not at all like his mother’s. He popped a piece in his mouth: Akira had gone with the original banana-cranberry paste, which left creamy, fruity ribbons trailing across his tongue. “Oh? Who was that?”

Akira gave him a look, setting down their coffees. “I saw you outside Yon Germain a few days before, Goro.”

“I go there quite often. Their moist katsu buns are divine.” And they’d saved his skin too many times to count in the Metaverse. Goro didn’t quite understand it himself.

“It was _your_ birthday.”

“… Ah, I see,” Goro said. “That explains why Miss Sae invited me out to dinner that night. She said she needed my help with a case, but then she ordered dessert when she usually doesn’t… Hm.”

Akira buried his head in his hands. “You forgot your own birthday.”

“After five thousand years with nothing to celebrate and no one to celebrate with, you would, too.”

“I had to find out from Wakipedia. Wakipedia knows more about you than you do.”

“To be fair, I didn’t remember it until a few years ago myself, and that only because”—he couldn’t mention Miss Mako’s postcards, always sent around that time of year. Goro hadn’t realized what they really were for an awfully long time. Akira would misunderstand completely—“a certain someone asked me for it. I believe he said it wasn’t fair that we were friends but didn’t know each other’s birthdays, and then he sent me cards every year after.”

“Ones that you never reciprocated sending, not that I blame you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah,” Akira said, peering at his plate. He picked up a spoon and dug in, pushing his plate of pancakes Goro’s way. He was done with his already, the last piece a tangy footnote on his tongue. Goro took them, cut them up, popped another piece in. “If I’d known you’d like them so much, I would have prepped more.”

“They’re really very good,” Goro said. “The paste gives it a smoothness that offsets the lack of syrup and provides enough of a distraction from the breading that I can’t help but wonder if I’m eating pancakes at all.”

“Well, they weren’t meant to be.”

“Hmm,” was all Goro said, mouth too full to answer properly. Mille-feuille. He hadn’t had that in a long, long time, not since his first paycheck. Like the mattress, he’d wanted a taste of the finer things in life—but the mille-feuille was special. Kanon’s was special.

Akira’s pancakes weren’t the same, but they were close.

“I’ll keep working at them. Maybe we’ll have another party like this for my birthday. How’s that sound?”

“Wouldn’t you want something _you_ want for your birthday?”

“I’ve never had a taste for sweet things,” Akira said, leveling a spoonful of curry at his eyes. Sauce dripped over the sides, and a chunk of potato fell off with a splat. “So, if I can get this right, that’ll be enough for me.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“It’s been a long time for me, too. Not nearly as long, but long enough. I think—I used to ask just for company. For my parents to be home from work so we could eat dinner together, or to spend the day out doing… something. Anything. So, yes, seeing your face light up when I get those damn cake slices right will be enough for me.”

Goro set his fork down, pancakes done. He shouldn’t have eaten them so fast, but they were good. Definitely very good. Definitely worth having to deal with whomever else Akira wanted to invite to his party, because he was just the type to have one. Goro, not so much.

He dug into the curry. The coffee Akira served didn’t pair well with the pancakes, but it did go well with the curry, and before long Akira was pouring him another cup. The silence that settled between them was almost comfortable. Goro hated to break it.

“I looked into those accidents, as I said I would,” he said, and Akira paused long enough to nod. “There were several people with the name Yuki who were involved, most of them female. Of the ones that were male, none of them died, but they were middle-aged or elderly. From what your Yuuki sounded like, he’s far too young to be one of them.”

“None of them got hurt?”

“Some did. The elderly man has been in and out of the hospital for chest pains brought on by the fright, and one woman was stepped on when she fell over, things of that nature. I didn’t realize you cared.”

“I just don’t like the idea of people getting hurt.”

“Most don’t.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t care because they’re not Yuuki? Because that would be a new low, even for you.”

“Not quite,” Goro said, though what he meant, exactly, he left up in the air. Akira didn’t need to know the lows Goro had fallen to. He found himself staring into his plate of curry. “It’s only that—news like that, it can be very impersonal. If you worry over every incident, no matter how great or small, you’ll find yourself at the end of your rope sooner rather than later.”

“I killed a whole planet, Goro,” Akira reminded him. Goro had been there. Goro had seen it dissolve into motes of light, twinkling little masses of pure energy meant to power the Soreil’s journey through space, so different from Ra Ciel’s fiery demise that it was wholly unfair. “If I wasn’t at the end of my rope then, I don’t think I’ll ever be.”

“Perhaps you just don’t know what the end of your rope looks like.”

Akira hummed. It could have been an agreement, but it was hard to tell. He was hard to read, in the half-light, though Goro thought there was a pensiveness on his face. Reflecting, perhaps, on what it meant to be truly cornered, or to be so thoroughly dead inside that even the loss of a friend wouldn’t rattle him.

Then Goro wondered how he couldn’t read him. He could read plenty of people, but not Akira. Was it because of Ra Ciela? Or was it simply that Akira didn’t want him to read him?

Or, was that simply Akira’s true face? Impassive and inscrutable?

But it softened as he turned, a faint smile curling one corner of his lips. Goro could see why people followed him: he did have a special charm, when he wanted to. Delight danced in his eyes.

“It’s a bit late,” Akira said, “but happy birthday, Goro.”

Goro couldn’t look at that face for too long. It was too much—it made him feel too much. He stared down at his curry plate instead, pushing around leftover grains of rice, trying to understand why the words made his chest hurt like the acid burn of indigestion.

Ah, right. Because he hadn’t heard them in so long. It felt like years since the last time he’d talked to Ren on the phone and heard _happy birthday, Goro._

“I, um,” he said, tongue too thick to work. “Thank you.”

Akira chuckled to himself, amused by how childish Goro was acting—and why shouldn’t he be? Why, when it was so much easier hearing those words over the phone? Why, when half the time he forgot his own damn birthday?

 _ **This isn’t like you**_ , Loki muttered.

 _ **Leave him be**_ , Robin Hood said, but Loki was right: it wasn’t like him to get flustered over something as simple as a birthday wish. It wasn’t like him to sit around, waiting for the conversation to be over. He knew how to make small talk, and he knew how to endure a conversation that dragged on for far too long.

Akira gathered up their plates and cups, taking them over to the sink and running the water. He looked smaller standing there, but no less regal, not even as he pulled on dish gloves and poured soap into the sink.

“Akira,” Goro said, wondering why he was saying it. “ih=lym-fu nery chei-ea;”

Akira tossed a grin over his shoulder. “Glad to hear it.”

* * *

Akira sank into a booth seat, Goro long gone, his only company the rain still drumming on the roof. Morgana pattered his way down the stairs, then hopped up on the table, tucking his tail around his legs.

“Who was that earlier?” he asked.

“Goro Akechi,” Akira told him, contemplating his phone. He hadn’t called his parents in a while; life as a Phantom Thief was too demanding, though that was just an excuse. With everything going on, he’d simply forgotten.

“That detective?” Akira had to hand it to him, he got the disgust of a cat down pat. “Why were you talking to him? Why was he here?”

“Because we’re friends.”

“With him? _How_?”

Ryuji had the same reaction. So far all Akira was willing to say was that the famed Detective Prince had wrong-number dialed his house and he’d answered, so he did. Morgana didn’t seem to buy it, but Akira was tired. Getting that paste ready wasn’t exactly easy.

He held up his phone. “You want to stay? I’m just gonna check in with my parents.”

“Why?” the cat asked. “ _They_ never call _you_.”

Akira thought of the worry in their eyes the day he left for Tokyo, so different from Before. They never would have sent him off with orders to be the one to decide when they talked, because if they had to call, they would call every day, and they had to let go sometime, right?

“They’re letting me work on my independence,” he said, and dialed. He’d been assured someone would always be home in the evening. If not, he’d try their cells, but he liked the gamble: would it be his mom, or his dad? Both? Neither?

The phone clicked. “Amamiya residence,” his dad said.

“Hey, Dad,” Akira said. Morgana’s ear twitched as he settled further onto the table.

“Ren. Good to hear from you; your mother was getting worried.”

“Sorry,” he said, sinking into the booth. “Is she there? I can tell her that myself.”

A slight rustling on the other end; maybe his dad was checking the calendar on the fridge. Everything important was jotted down there, like when Ren had meets or competitions or if his parents were going out of town or if there was a birthday coming up. “She’s on a business trip. I’ll tell her you called, though.” He cleared his throat. “Did you want to speak to her instead?”

“I’m not picky.” Akira fiddled with a napkin from the dispenser. “I don’t mind talking to you.”

His dad sighed, something long and drawn out. “It’s not good to lie, Ren.”

“I’m not lying. I just don’t know how to tell you that you’re like, a pair. Whatever I tell Mom, she’ll tell you, and vice versa. Right? So…”

His dad hummed, unconvinced, and asked, “So, how are you finding Tokyo? And school—Mr. Sakura called to tell us you were in the middle of your class. Was it—was it—”

“It wasn’t gymnastics. I was just… busy. Thinking about things. Wound up too busy to bother with homework. Although”—he leveled a glare at Morgana, who stared right back— “a certain someone likes to sleep on my notebooks.”

“A certain—oh, you mean that cat you picked up.”

“Yeah. You wanna talk to him? He’s right here.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” his dad said.

“I do!” Morgana said, perking up. “Your mom was a nice lady, and they should know that I’m doing my best to make sure you get enough sleep!”

“He wants to,” Akira said.

“Ah,” his dad sighed. “Alright, alright.”

He put the phone on speaker and set it on the table. Morgana sat up, straight and tall, his tail flipping behind him. He cleared his throat. “Good evening, Mr. Amamiya,” he said, in the stuffiest tone Akira had ever heard. It was exactly like the baron in the show they’d just finished watching. “My name is Morgana. Rest assured that I’m making sure Akira takes care of himself during his time here. If not for my excellent observation skills, your son would be a hopeless, sleep-deprived mess. After all, everyone knows that nothing you learn really sticks if you don’t sleep and eat well!”

“So some of that praise should be yours, huh,” Akira said.

“Exactly!” Morgana said. “Which is why you should tell Akira that I deserve some sushi!”

“This again?”

“One of these days, someone will realize that all of the skills I’ve taught you is worth my—no, your—no, _Ryuji’s_ weight in fatty tuna!”

“You know, my dad’s not going to convince me to buy you sushi.”

“Sushi?” his dad asked. “The—the cat wants sushi?”

“He wants the fish,” Akira said, over Morgana’s howl of “Yes, I do!”

“Ha,” his dad said, which then exploded into full-out laughter; Morgana complained with a last angry yowl and then huffed, lying down and facing the bar.

Akira took his phone back, taking it off speaker. He didn’t remember the last time his dad laughed, couldn’t remember if it was years ago over something he’d done as a child or more recently. “I do feed him, before you ask,” Akira said, as the laughter began to die down. “He just really wants sushi and he won’t take no for an answer.”

“That reminds me of someone,” his dad said. The last vestiges of laughter made his tone light and airy. “This little dirt-covered kid, running up to your mom and I. He demanded we let him take gymnastics lessons. Bugged us for almost a month before we relented and signed him up. …You still enjoy it, don’t you, after all this time.”

He did. He liked practicing with Yoshizawa, though the months spent out of practice made his limbs stiff. He needed to stretch more, before he lost his touch completely. “Yeah. Like I said, I was just… going through some stuff. But I guess it’s good the team at Shujin didn’t want me. I’m not sure I’d be doing so well if I had to worry about practices, too, right now. But—you remember Yoshizawa, from the team? I ran into her cousin here. She’s been practicing with me, sometimes.”

“Yoshizawa, huh,” his dad said. There was a pause. “Shame what happened to them. I can’t imagine what they’re going through—if your mother and I lost you like that, too, I don’t know what we’d do.”

 _But you have_ , he thought, even as an icy tendril settled in his stomach. He didn’t like that tone. “Lost me? What do you mean?”

“Just that. You know they were—” Static erupted over the line. Akira winced at the volume. “—right? So, so if she hasn’t mentioned it, Ren, don’t go digging it up, alright? These things take time. Let her grieve.”

“I, uh.” Let her grieve? Let who grieve? Yoshizawa? She didn’t act like she was grieving. She was still heading to practice every day, even if she wasn’t happy with the results.

But she’d also gone to that clean-up event, even though she could have stayed behind and practiced more. Maybe she didn’t trust herself without other people around.

Maybe she didn’t like the thought of being alone.

Akira knew what that was like. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Good,” his dad said, then sighed again. “I—I know it must be hard for her right now. It’s hard for you too, so—try to be there for her.”

“Uh,” Akira said, then cleared his throat. “Right.”

Though Akira would have liked to chat a bit more, his dad had to be up early the next day for a meeting; they bid each other good night, and Akira wound up staring at the window. He hadn’t gotten the chance to say anything he wanted to—not about Goro, not about Yuuki, not about anything—but that had to be alright. There would be more time. He could say everything he wanted next time, because he had next times now.

But he couldn’t help but think what he would do if he lost his parents. If they were here one day and gone the next, like he’d been Before…

“Akira?” Morgana asked, as Akira buried his face in his hands. “Look, I’m not mad about the sushi, okay? You don’t need to—”

“It’s not that,” he said. Goro lost his mother. Yoshizawa lost—someone. How many other lives was his return going to take? How many other men and women, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, was his selfish love going to be worth?

It had to be worth it. It had to.

But Akira wasn’t so sure anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ciel ih-cyen yan-soy-i should be "Ra Ciela is with us."
> 
> ih=lym-fu nery chei-ea should be something along the lines of "I'm looking forward to doing this again."


	9. The Moon, Rank 5

Yuuki stared at the display. Everyone could recognize a Glock, but it looked too bulky to fit in his bag. Maybe he could go with something smaller, something thinner—but that wouldn’t leave much of an impression. A finger pistol was like a toy; it was only good for laughing at.

But everything else in the display was out of his price range.

He was glad he’d saved his birthday money, but it would barely be enough for the Glock. He’d have to go with that.

He grabbed up a box, took it over to the counter. The shopkeeper, his feet propped up on the glass case, glanced up from his magazine. “Find what ya wanted?”

Yuuki nodded, his tongue too thick and too dry to form words. His hands shook as he pressed the box to the counter.

“You know you gotta assemble it, right?”

Yuuki nodded again. He shoved his hands in his pockets and pressed his icy fingers to his thighs. He had to calm down. Just because the shop was sketchy didn’t mean the cops were watching it, and just because the cops had talked to him didn’t mean they had a tail on him.

But. Just to be safe…

The shopkeeper rang it up, and Yuuki counted out bills and took his meager change. But just as he took hold of the box again, the shopkeeper asked, “You got clippers at home? Sandpaper? Paint?”

“Paint?” Yuuki asked, his voice a creak, staring down at the box. The Glock in the picture was matte black and it sucked in all the light in the room, but it was better than looking in the case and at the rows of lethal-looking brass knuckles and boxes of BB pellets and what looked like a very sharp dagger. Or three. The box blocked them.

“Ya don’t, then.”

Yuuki shook his head. Paint. Why would he need paint? Why did it matter?

The shopkeeper sighed. He took a look at the clock, ticking away in a corner. Yuuki’s heart was just about ready to burst out of his chest when he said, “About closin’ time. You help me with that, I’ll help ya put that together. Deal?”

“Um, but—”

He glared. Yuuki, startled, dropped the box and banged a knee against the case. “You ain’t got the tools, so don’t go whinin’ about acceptin’ help. The hell’s with all you damn kids buyin’ up my stock, anyway?”

“But, I—I don’t—” _Have the money_ , he tried to say, but the words withered in his throat at the shopkeeper’s glare. He slumped to the floor in defeat. “Okay.”

“Good. Go switch off the sign and close the shutter. It locks from this side, too.”

Yuuki went, leaving his bag and the box behind. His hands fumbled with the shutter, not expecting the weight of it, or for the lock to slip out of the latch—but that was his hands, palms clammy and slick with sweat, not the shutter or the latch, though it was easy to think so.

But that seemed kind of… unfair. That there was a problem with him that made it difficult to interact with the world: his voice, not working; his hands, too sweaty; his knees, like lead balls connecting strings of jelly. It wasn’t his fault he was nervous; it was everyone else’s for making him that way.

By the time he turned around, the shop lights were off and his bag and box were gone. A door leading into a store room was cracked open, spilling enough light to help him dodge displays of camo gear and pet sweaters, coiled whips and clubs. He passed a very convincing, very large ax and swallowed down the lump in his throat.

He hadn’t done anything wrong. This was an airsoft shop. There was nothing wrong with buying a model gun, and the shopkeeper hadn’t asked for ID, so that was on him. Yuuki hadn’t done anything wrong.

But it felt like he had, as if the very thought of being able to defend himself was wrong. As if all he was supposed to ever be was a punching bag.

“Kid,” the shopkeeper called, and Yuuki jumped and hurried along, no longer caring what displays his sleeves caught on.

It was the owner’s fault, not his.

By the time he joined the shopkeeper, he felt ready to jump straight out of his skin. The cramped storeroom that doubled as a workstation didn’t make things easier, not with the shopkeeper’s bulky frame taking up most of the space. He sat on a crate by the work bench, pushed out the stool with a foot, and nodded to it.

Yuuki sat, like the obedient little punching bag he was.

 _What’s wrong with me today?_ he thought, as the shopkeeper spread out the contents of the box. He reached into a drawer, pulled out several tools, and placed those next to Yuuki.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. The shopkeeper stayed put on his crate, leaning over the workbench, giving Yuuki pointers—as it turned out, putting together a model gun was a lot like putting together a Gundom, with a lot of plastic stabbing into his hands and close calls with the clippers. Sanding down what he’d clipped was the easiest part, and Yuuki took a bit of pride in every snug piece that fit neatly into each other.

But then it got bad. At some point Yuuki leaned back to stretch the muscles in his back out and ran into the shopkeeper, now right behind him. He loomed over Yuuki, one hand on the work bench for balance, head craning over his shoulder to watch what he was doing. His breath was hot, and smelled like strawberries.

The bare bulb overhead flickered. The shopkeeper clicked his tongue, glanced at his watch, and sighed. “We’ll stop here for today,” he declared, stretching out his own back with a series of cracks.

Yuuki looked at the half-finished model, still barely more than a lump of plastic. “But it’s not done,” he said.

“Nah, but you are,” the shopkeeper sniffed. “Look, it’s late. I’m used ta workin’ on these for hours, kid, but you ain’t. Go home, bandage up those hands, and get some damn sleep. Then you can come back tomorrow, or the day after, and finish it up. And then you can come back the day after that to paint it. Ain’t done ‘til it’s painted.”

So, all told, two or three more days crammed into this storage room, with the bare bulb burning his back, the heat so stifling Yuuki could cut it with a knife. He was sweating in his shirt; the shopkeeper had to be roasting in his thick coat and heavy jeans.

As he turned, the shopkeeper took off his hat and fanned himself. “Gotta turn on the dehumidifiers before we leave,” he mumbled. “All this humidity ain’t good for the guns.”

“Um,” Yuuki said, like a crack of thunder.

“What?”

“How come—I don’t have any more money, I can’t pay you for this—”

The shopkeeper stared at him, then shrugged. “Shop ain’t open, is it?”

After realizing he expected an answer, Yuuki said, “Um, no.”

“And ya bought the gun, didn’tcha?”

“Um. I did.”

“But ya don’t have the tools or the know-how to put it together, right?”

Yuuki shook his head.

“That’s why.” He shoved his hat back on, despite the sweat on his brow. “Ain’t nothin’ worse than a kid who fucks up a perfectly good model ‘cause they don’t know how ta put it together.”

For some reason, that eased Yuuki’s nerves. It wasn’t that he wanted something else from him, it was just his pride as a hobbyist. He couldn’t watch Yuuki fumble around putting it together, and he didn’t want to hear that he’d messed it up. That was all.

…But that just made Yuuki wonder what would happen if he did mess it up. How angry would the shopkeeper get? What if he had no qualms about his reputation, unlike Kamoshida, who knew the principal could only cover up so much?

“Got it?” the shopkeeper asked, practically growling it.

Yuuki jumped. “Yes, sir! I do—I mean, I understand!”

“Good,” he said. “Now get going.”

Yuuki snatched up his bag and left.

* * *

With the gun not an immediate defense, Yuuki wasn’t sure what to do—until Ryuji invited him to the gym, citing a need for a spotter.

It turned out that spotter was for Takamaki while Ryuji ran for almost an hour on the treadmill, but Yuuki figured that was okay: it was his first time doing any kind of weight training since the team disbanded, much less cardio, and he despaired at how much muscle he’d lost in the months after. He didn’t think he was so attached to the little bit he’d built up, but it was more than that: it was stamina he used to have, and a suspicious layer of fat on his thighs, and the way his legs burned after only a mile on the treadmill.

“Hey, you’ll get better,” Ryuji said, with a crooked grin as they took their water break. Takamaki’s face was flushed from her time in the corner doing yoga poses, but she grinned, too, nodding along.

“Thanks, I guess,” Yuuki said, staring at his water bottle. He’d drunk over half of it, and their gym time was barely half-over. It felt odd, working out with water on hand and sloshing around in his stomach.

Ryuji, guzzling down his own, finished with a gasp, then groaned. “I gotta take a leak,” he said, then ran off to the locker room.

Which left only Yuuki and Takamaki and that guy in the corner, facing off against the training dummy and getting his butt kicked. Perfect.

“He is so gross,” Takamaki muttered, combing her fingers through a pigtail.

“I, uh—I guess so?”

“You do, huh?” Takamaki said with a grin. “Anything else you’re guessing at?”

That he was going to quickly run out of spending money. “Uh, no? Not really.”

Although he was going to have to amp up the search for new potential targets for the Phantom Thieves. All of the ones he was seeing lately were small-time, petty criminals, just the same as the ones they’d done before. Stalkers and bad bosses and terrible parents could only get them so far; Yuuki wanted their name to resound from one side of the city to the other. He wanted the very mention of them to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who dared to hurt and use others.

Takamaki sipped at her drink—water infused with fruit that left pulpy strands floating in it—and the guy in the corner got whacked upside the head. He sprawled out on the mat, chest heaving.

Then Takamaki said, “Hey, Mishima. Thanks for spotting for me today. Ryuji can be such a jerk sometimes, so it was really nice to work with someone who’s more into it, you know?”

“What, does he just make eyes at the treadmill the whole time?”

“Pretty much,” Takamaki said. “Usually Akira or Makoto come with us, too, but they were both busy today. I’d invite Yusuke, but he’s kind of…”

She winced, rubbing at her arms. Yuuki watched, out of the corner of his eye, the flex of her breasts under her shirt, the soft spill and slight jiggle as she shivered despite the warm air in the gym. “You mean he would stare, if he spotted for you.”

“Probably?” she said, sounding unsure. “I don’t think he’d mean to. He’s super dense when it comes to stuff like this, and he’s never had friends before, but he _has_ said he likes me, in so many words. If being perfect modeling material counts.”

“Uh, so,” Yuuki muttered, puzzling it out. “Then you think he might be interested, and you don’t want to give him the opportunity to stare?”

She sighed. “I knew you’d get it. The boys are so clueless, I swear.”

“I don’t think it’s that hard to figure out.” Plenty of the girls had done their weight training separate from the boys’ team, for reasons exactly like that. They didn’t want to give Kamoshida the excuse to stare, and they didn’t want the boys to, either. Yuuki had thought the training room was too small for both teams to fit, anyway.

“This is Ryuji, the guy who tried to sneak a peek up my skirt when I took a nap on the couch,” Takamaki mumbled to herself. “And Yusuke didn’t stop him, either. I can think he’s just dense all I like, but…”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Yuuki finished, just as quietly. She nodded. He shifted on his feet, aware that Ryuji had been gone for a little too long to just be taking a leak, aware that he had somehow made the conversation awkward once again.

 _Way to go, Y_ _uuki_ , he told himself. But he had to ask, “But I don’t, you know, make you feel that way? I’m a guy, too. I could be staring.” The guy by the training dummy got up, dusted himself off, and started back up again. His hands were bruised; Yuuki didn’t understand why he didn’t use the gloves hanging on the rack. Maybe they were too small.

“Nah, you were too into keeping count for me.” Takamaki quickly shot that down.

A surge of anger ran through him. “That doesn’t mean I couldn’t have done it!”

She only shook her head, one pigtail flopping over a shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t see you as a guy, Mishima,” she said, slowly explaining, as if she, too, was just becoming aware of it. “But it’s… I don’t know, something else? After all that stuff Kamoshida put you through, I don’t think you’d jump at the chance to be just like him. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” he muttered, anger coiling in his gut. The police didn’t think he was a threat just for running a website; the Phantom Thieves didn’t think he was a threat. Maybe he wasn’t, but it still hurt.

“Yeah, maybe. Unless you’re saying you want to be.”

“Want to be,” he repeated, this time more to himself. Did he want to be a threat? Did he want to be dangerous? Did he want to be so dangerous Takamaki wouldn’t want him to spot for her anymore?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I—I could be, couldn’t I? Everybody has the same propensity for evil in them, don’t they? So I could be.” But that sounded too… unsure. And this was Takamaki, who was trying to thank him, trying to confide in him. Why was he trying to ruin that?

He had an idea. “I mean, maybe staring at girls isn’t my idea of evil. Maybe it’s, I dunno, messing up your reps, or putting too much weight on one side of the barbell.”

She laughed. “Oh, is that so? We’ll have to set the Phantom Thieves on you for that! Make you change those evil ways of yours!”

The Phantom Thieves, coming after him? The thought made him laugh: after everything he’d done for them, they’d repay him like that? They’d take his heart for some silly, trivial thing like miscounting bench presses? They’d never get famous like that.

But long after Ryuji came back—“Sorry, it turned into a dump,” he said, and Takamaki screeched at him, disgusted—the thought stayed in his head: he wasn’t dangerous. He wasn’t a threat.

It should have felt good, knowing that such a pretty girl like Takamaki trusted him. But it didn’t.

He wondered if it had anything to do with the way her breasts hadn’t excited him. Takamaki was big, and everyone in school knew it, and he’d had a front row seat to watch them jiggle and sway to his heart’s content, and he… hadn’t.

That thought made him pause in the middle of the sidewalk, halfway to his apartment. Just the idea of calling her breasts anything but that felt wrong. Takamaki was more than a couple heaps of fat and flesh, more than just a pretty foreigner. She was kind, and liked to cheer people up, and the relaxed smile she’d given him as she thanked him did more for him than her breasts did.

If he thought about it some more, he always liked the idols who thanked their fans more than others. They did it just to hook people in, but it worked: Yuuki had tuned in to more than one concert on TV, hoping to see a pretty smile and hear a _thank you for watching!_

He’d always imagined they were smiling only at him, thanking only him, but knew that it was all rote, all procedure. They had to do it to keep their fans coming back. They had to do it to survive.

He sighed, staring at a spot of dirt on his shoes. When did he get that? How did he never notice?

He sighed again, scrubbing at the hair on the back of his head. It was getting long again, longer than he’d ever let it get on the team. The guys used to go out as a big group for cuts or trims every couple of months, because Kamoshida got pissed whenever their hair started flinging sweat everywhere. According to Takaoka, some of it got in his mouth once, and he’d upheld the hair rule ever since.

But the team was disbanded. He could grow it out as much as he liked now. He could be like Komaki, styling it differently every week, looking like a K-pop star straight out of a magazine. Or he could be like Aizawa, keeping it long-ish but trimmed so that it never fell past his ears…

… What had he been doing, again? Yuuki blinked, and the world around him came back into focus: pedestrians in a myriad of genders and ages and styles; cars in a dozen different makes and models; the 777’s bright neon sign and the clip of music as the doors opened. Despite the heat of the night, he shivered.

He didn’t know why. Between Takamaki’s breasts and the spot of dirt on his shoe and the realization that his hair was growing out, he felt tired. It was more than just the ache left over in his muscles, more than just the drain of listening to Takamaki and Ryuji bicker over what workout to do next. As his feet took him back to his apartment, his thoughts ran in circles: just because he didn’t like Takamaki’s breasts didn’t mean he didn’t like them at all, right? And just because his hair was getting long, that didn’t mean anything either. It was just laziness—he didn’t want to go out, didn’t have the money for a barber—and it was just carefulness. He was being mindful of Takamaki and how she felt.

That was all. He was sure of it.

But it didn’t feel right.

“I’m home,” he called at the genkan, toeing off his shoes, wondering if he would remember to scrape that spot of dirt off in the morning. He’d probably forget.

“You’re late,” came his mother’s reply, cold and biting. She looked at him from the couch, her face pale in the light from the TV, her eyes nothing but dark pits Yuuki struggled not to fall into.

“I’m not—it’s only nine,” he said. There was a clock right over the TV, and he could read it easily. She could, too.

“You missed dinner,” was her only response. “I called you. I called you over and over, Yuuki. What were you so busy doing that you couldn’t bother to pick up?”

“I was at the gym.”

Her face was incredulous, her mouth a thin line. His arms ached with old, long-gone bruises.

“With a friend,” he added.

With the Phantom Thieves, he wanted to say, just to scare her, so she’d stop staring at him like that. Like he was a child tracking dirt across the house, like he was causing her trouble, like he was always causing her trouble, even if it was because she never listened.

But he didn’t. She would only yell, and insist on taking him to the police. Ryuji was his friend, and Takamaki was nice, and Amamiya wasn’t nearly as vicious as all the rumors made him out to be. Yuuki couldn’t turn them in.

“And we got—got dinner after,” he finished, choking a little on his own spit. His mouth still tasted of onions and sweet teriyaki sauce; crepes were the only compromise Ryuji and Takamaki were willing to come to, and it was better than Big Bang Burger. They’d even split the cost on his, since they’d invited him.

It felt odd, being so… humored. Was that the right word? It was probably the right word.

His mother’s eyes narrowed. She got up from the couch. “Did you now?”

Yuuki didn’t like that tone of voice. He didn’t like the way she was looking at him, like he was a liar and she only had to find out what the lie was.

But he wasn’t lying. He never lied to her. “Yes,” he said, as his mouth went sour.

He was still at the genkan. His shoes were off but his bag was still on his shoulder, his keys still in his hand. He threw them at her as she rounded the corner of the couch, buying enough time to snatch his shoes back up and throw open the door.

“Yuuki!” she shouted, as he fled down the hall to the elevator. He toed his shoes back on inside, not bothering with the laces; if he stopped that long she would catch him. She would accuse him of all sorts of things, yelling and yelling, not letting him get a word in edgewise.

His phone rang as he left the building. He ignored it, dashing down the street, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder.

His phone rang as he passed the 777, its cheery music muffled through the door. He ignored it.

His phone rang as he entered the station, getting on the first train he could find. He turned it off.

He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want to listen to her. He didn’t want to look at her. She would insist on it, and he would puke if he did, and then she’d find out exactly what he had for dinner, and then Takamaki and Ryuji would get angry at him for wasting their money, and he didn’t want that. Not any of it. He wanted things to stay exactly the way they were: his mother off at work all the time; his father finally leaving him be after months of creaking through the apartment like a lackluster ghost; everyone leaving him be to work on the Phan-site. He hadn’t touched it in days.

He should—he should do that. Find some place to crash for the night and catch up on maintenance, get rid of all those trolls running amok, delete all those comments that said the Phantom Thieves couldn’t take down an organization like Medjed. They could and everyone knew it; they took down the mafia, didn’t they?

(He couldn’t help but remember Takamaki and Ryuji, fighting over what to eat for dinner. Ryuji was adamant about a beef bowl, Takamaki wanted something sweet. Yuuki had been the one to point out the crepe stand, with both, kind of.

So maybe he did understand, why some people could believe they couldn’t. But it irked him all the same.)

It was no wonder that he found himself back in Shibuya, idly wandering the underground mall until it closed, too nervous to actually hunker down and get some work done. Then he found himself wandering Central Street, with dozens of shops closing for the night, the 777 as bright and cheery as ever. Yuuki thought about wandering in, asking if he could crash in their break room for the night. They’d probably hand him an application. It wouldn’t be productive.

Well, maybe he could—

“Mishima?” came a voice down the sidewalk, and Yuuki jerked to it—Takaoka in a sweat-stained shirt, his hair combed back and out of his face. His surprise didn’t last long. It quickly melted into warm camaraderie, until it was like Kamoshida had never gone to jail and Yuuki was a first-year again, listening to him talk about how this was all going to be worth it.

“Hey! It’s been ages, huh?” He closed the distance between them too easily. Takaoka was one of the tallest on the team, perfect for a blocker. There was a reason Yuuki had been relegated to receiving. “What are you doing out so late? Have you eaten yet? It’s hard to find anything appealing when it’s this hot out, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” Yuuki said, unsure what to answer first. He smelled something—meat, and curry, and something vaguely spicy—and sneezed.

Takaoka gave him a sheepish smile. “Ah, sorry. One of the customers spilled all the pepper. Some of it must have gotten on me.”

“Some of it?” Yuuki said, holding his nose. His eyes watered. Then he backtracked. “Customers? Like, with food?”

“I might have gotten a job at the beef bowl place,” Takaoka admitted. “My parents—they don’t have the money for cram school, so I’ve been working there to earn it.”

“Oh,” Yuuki said, with another sneeze.

Takaoka laughed. But just like on the team, he sobered up quick. “So, what are you doing out so late, Mishima? It’s going on midnight. Aren’t your parents worried?”

Well. Yuuki could sober up quickly, too. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered, eyes catching on the storekeeper in 777. She’d dragged a cart full of boxes up in front of the register and was quietly filling shelves. Yuuki imagined her humming along to the music.

“Mishima,” Takaoka said, and Yuuki focused harder on the shopkeeper’s small smile, on the bounce in her step. Something good must have happened to her recently, for her to be so damn happy.

“ _Mishima_ ,” Takaoka tried again, voice just shy of his captain’s bark. Yuuki jerked again. It was a reflex nurtured from one too many days on the court trying Takaoka’s patience. He was normally so collected that it was hard to think of him snapping, but his deep frown and knit brows were full of anger.

Why was he so angry Yuuki didn’t want to talk about it? Did he think that just because he was captain, that made him the team mother, always having to stick his nose into everyone’s business?

Yuuki started to say so, but Takaoka beat him to the punch. “Do you not want to go home, then?”

Yuuki couldn’t look away from his—concerned, it was concern, not anger, he told himself—concerned face, the one that said that if anything had happened Takaoka was going to give his parents hell. Yuuki almost wished he would; his phone burned like an ember in his pocket. Just touching it felt like a bomb was about to go off. He shook his head.

“Do you have anywhere else to go?”

Ryuji’s, maybe, if Yuuki wasn’t aware of how much of a burden he’d be and knew where he lived. Maybe Amamiya’s. He lived above a cafe. Yuuki wouldn’t be imposing on anyone if he found a corner and stayed there all night, except Amamiya’s cat seemed to have it out for anyone up too late. He complained of the cat sitting on his homework until he went to bed every time the teachers asked him why his assignments weren’t complete. It seemed funny in class, even as guilt coiled in Yuuki’s gut: he had no one to stop him from doing his assignments, but he still wasn’t doing them himself. Ms. Usami didn’t even bother asking for his anymore.

“Mishima? Do you?”

He shook his head, thoughts clearing. Or jumbling back up. It was hard to tell.

“Okay,” Takaoka said, and rocked back to think, hands planted on his hips. His bag slid off his shoulder and swung from an elbow; Yuuki hiked his up farther, until the straps kissed his neck. His hand kept finding his phone, kept pressing against the ridges of it through his pocket. She was mad; she had to be, and Yuuki didn’t want to sit there and listen to her yell at him. He didn’t do anything wrong. Going to the gym wasn’t wrong; hanging out with a friend wasn’t wrong.

But she would make sure he knew it was something else, that it had to be something else, that he was lying and worthless and a no-good son—

“Okay!” declared Takaoka. He thrust a hand out. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?” Yuuki’s fingers pressed into it. Smooth, hard, unyielding. Like the Phantom Thieves were supposed to be.

“So I can call your parents and let them know where you’ll be tonight. They should know, even if you don’t want to talk to them. You won’t have to say a word, okay?”

Takaoka always kept his promises. Yuuki could trust him. He trusted him before, on the team; why not now?

He asked, “Where… I’ll be tonight?”

Takaoka nodded. “If you don’t have anywhere else to go, you’re welcome to come back to my place. My parents won’t mind. I’ve had a bunch of the team stay over on occasion over the past few months; you won’t be bothering them.”

“But, I—” He broke off before he could finish. He didn’t want to impose, but he didn’t actually want to stay out on the streets all night. It was way too hot and muggy for that. He’d collapse of heatstroke after an hour.

“Fine,” he muttered, tugging his phone out. Takaoka called his folks while it booted up—they at least sounded alright with a complete stranger staying the night, which was good—and Yuuki braced himself for the slew of missed calls and texts. There were only a dozen, and a few of them were from his dad.

 **I’ll talk to your mother tomorrow** , the last one said. **Do you have someplace to stay the night? If you need money, I’m still at the office. You can swing by.**

Swing by and then sleep in the break room, if there even was one. But now that he had options, Yuuki found he didn’t want to be alone, or surrounded by strangers who only knew him from Hirotaka’s stories, if he told any. Yuuki called him, then handed the phone over.

Takaoka was all smiles, right from the beginning. “Hello. You must be Mishima’s dad. I’m Ayato Takaoka, the captain—uh, former captain of the volleyball team.”

Yuuki’s gaze drifted over to the 777 again, where the shopkeeper plugged away at her boxes, leading the occasional customer to the front of the store to warm up food or pay. One man came right out, tapped a cigarette out of his newly-bought box, and lit up.

“Yes,” Takaoka said. “He’s here. He’s fine. Yes.”

The guy flipped Yuuki the bird when he caught him staring, and Yuuki turned away, shoving his hands in his pockets. One of them was sweaty, but he grit his teeth and bore it.

“Ah, actually, I was going to let him stay the night at my place. Yes. No, it’s no bother. My folks love meeting the team! Although they do wish it was under better circumstances,” he laughed. “Oh, no no no, you don’t have to do that. I—this is part of my responsibility as captain. That’s how I’m seeing it. It’s… the least I can do, now.”

Yuuki dared a glance at his face: all that cheery optimism was muted, hidden under a veil of shadows. Kamoshida, and everything he’d wrought, coming back to bite them all once again.

“Yes,” Takaoka said, one last time. “I’ll make sure he gets home tomorrow, though I can’t guarantee a time. That’ll be up to him. Thank you, sir. Have a nice evening.”

He hung up, passed the phone back. “I think I like your dad.”

“That makes one of us,” Yuuki said, tucking it in his bag. The screen was covered in sweat; he’d have to wipe it down later.

They settled into silence as they boarded a train out of the range of Yuuki’s student pass—

(“You’re not the first one I’ve spotted, okay?” Takaoka assured him, waving his ticket in his face until Yuuki grabbed it and thanked him. Today was winding up expensive. He owed too many people too much, now.)

—and rode it for a good half an hour. Takaoka pulled out a workbook and started on some problems, but Yuuki was never very good at planning for these kinds of things. All he had was his phone.

He scrolled through his messages, ignoring the ones from his mother demanding to know where he was and why he ran. As if she didn’t know, he thought, selecting a notice from the Phan-site: the Phantom Thieves had changed another minor heart, and the requester was thankful, could he pass that on?

 **I’m sure they’re just glad to be helping out people just like you** , Yuuki sent, wondering how this was going to spread their name far and wide. It wasn’t. Small-time crooks only netted them small-time fame. It was big guys like Kamoshida and Madarame and Kaneshiro that got talked about, not a bunch of petty burglars.

If they somehow took down Medjed… If they could do that, then people would have to believe, right?

Takaoka’s apartment building was a newer model. Yuuki listened to him explain that they’d moved after a fire broke out in their old building, determined to move back after renovations were done, and winding up never doing it. They had more than enough room, even if it was a bit more expensive.

“Dad was saying they might take in a boarder if I leave for college,” Takaoka said as they climbed stairs. Takaoka didn’t like taking the elevator; he liked to try keeping in shape, unlike Yuuki. “An exchange student, maybe. Said it’d be exciting.”

Yuuki didn’t understand what could be so exciting about having a strange foreigner living in your house, but didn’t say so. It wasn’t his life or his house. “I guess,” he said, just so Takaoka would know he was listening.

“I think it sounds pretty cool, letting someone else experience what it’s like to live here,” Takaoka said. His voice echoed off the walls; Yuuki wondered if they were bothering anyone, talking like this. “Besides, it’s not like I’ll need the room if I leave.”

He kept saying _if_ , like he wasn’t sure he’d be going anywhere. But if Yuuki was in his place, he wouldn’t think any differently. That was just the way it was for most of them. They’d poured everything into volleyball and gotten nothing in return.

Takaoka opened a door at a landing and entered hall; Yuuki tried to count the numbers on the doors—1102, 1104, 1106—before he yawned, losing track. He bumped into Takaoka as he dug in his bag to get his keys, and before long Yuuki was standing in another genkan in an apartment two cities away from his own, toeing his shoes off and contemplating taking his bag in with him.

“We’re home,” Takaoka said. The woman on the couch started, blinking blearily at the TV she left running, its light spilling across her face. Yuuki braced himself as she looked them over.

She smiled. “Ayato, Mishima. Welcome back.”

Takaoka turned on lights in the kitchen. Yuuki couldn’t will his feet to move. “You made two plates, Mom?”

“Well, you said you had a friend coming over,” she explained, getting up from the couch to search for the remote. “You’re both growing boys. You need to eat more!”

Yuuki was pretty sure he didn’t. His brain kicked into gear; he bowed, bag nearly sliding off his shoulder. “Um!” he said, voice cracking. “Th-thank you for—for letting me stay the night!”

She was going to be angry, like his mother was. She was going to yell about the costs, she was going to hiss about the burden he was being—but she only said, “Oh, it’s no trouble, dear. After everything you all went through, it’s the least I can do.”

He had a feeling Hirotaka said something similar. He couldn’t remember what he told him in response. It should have been, “I—um, thank you.”

Takaoka said, “We’ll clean up, Mom. You go on to bed, okay?”

“Alright,” she said, with a yawn. “Don’t stay up too late, understand?”

“Right,” Yuuki and Takaoka agreed. They watched her disappear into a room; Takaoka nudged him, pulling back into the kitchen where the lights were dim and the food was heating up in the microwave.

“How much rice do you want?” he was asked. “One scoop? Two?”

“You make it sound like ice cream,” Yuuki said, taking a seat at the table. The crepe he ate for dinner felt like so long ago. “Two, I guess.”

“Two, coming right up!”

He couldn’t help but watch the muscles in Takaoka’s arms work as he scooped up rice into bowls. It was a stupid thing to focus on, but it was proof that Takaoka was taking his training seriously—not like Yuuki, who’d stopped exercising the second he didn’t have to anymore. His arms were going to get fat.

Although, if he did a push-up for every post he deleted or troll account he banned, maybe he’d get fit again in no time.

Takaoka’s mother had made egg rolls. They went soft and soggy in the microwave, but were still plenty good; Yuuki crunched his way through a mouthful of cabbage and wondered if Takamaki was going to get fat someday, too.

Probably not. She was a model; she couldn’t get fat.

By the time they finished eating and cleaning up, it was almost two in the morning. Tomorrow was Sunday, and the late hour didn’t bother Yuuki, but he had to ask, “Do you usually get off from the beef bowl place this late?”

Nodding, Takaoka kept brushing his teeth. They’d both taken quick showers, and Yuuki was in a set of ill-fitting pajamas; the sleeves kept covering his hands, and he smeared toothpaste on one. Takaoka spat out his mouthful and said, “Only on Saturday, and only because there’s no one to cover so late. That place needs more workers, but have you been inside? It’s no wonder they can’t keep anyone.”

Amamiya had muttered something to that effect at some point. _I’m only one person_ , he’d grumbled as they passed it by. Not even Big Bang Burger was that hard on their employees.

“Huh,” Yuuki said, taking his turn to spit. He dabbed at the smear with some water. If he squinted, it kind of disappeared.

“But it’ll be worth it if I can get into college,” Takaoka declared, leading Yuuki to the last room down the tiny hall. Takaoka’s bedroom was small and made even smaller by the guest futon spread out on the floor; a squat table leaned up against a wall, and a stack of workbooks and brochures Yuuki guessed had been sitting on it were on the floor at the foot of the bed. Takaoka’s feet dangled over the edge when he laid down, blanket spread over his middle.

With the lights out, in the futon, Yuuki could almost imagine he was at home, in his own bed. But Takaoka’s breathing kept his heart racing; it felt weird to sleep in the same room as another person, let alone another guy.

“Hey, Mishima,” Takaoka said, after several minutes of them lying there, trying to get comfortable and failing. His voice was quiet, and even then, it carried.

“Yeah?”

“What I said before, about not letting people trample on you anymore—I don’t take it back, but. I think it was the wrong thing to say. It’s hard to go up against others, especially when they have a better reputation or connections or… anything like that. It’s hard to go up against people like Kamoshida, or Madarame. His last student was an orphan, you know? Where would he have gone if he got kicked out?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuki said, “but he probably didn’t have a team captain waiting to take him home.”

Oh, that’s what it was: it felt weird because it was Takaoka. Yuuki always turned down his help, before. Once they were on the train, Yuuki wanted to be left alone. He never wanted this… companionship. He never wanted anyone to hover around him and care.

But people were, now. He was sleeping in the same room as a guy. He was sleeping in the same room as his former team captain. He never would have done so, before.

His insides squirmed. It was too weird, too odd, too much, after months and years of nothing.

(He tried to think that Takaoka wouldn’t do anything to him in his sleep. It was too much like that empty classroom he’d almost put out of his mind entirely. Takaoka was bigger and stronger but he wouldn’t do anything.

Just like the bully hadn’t done anything. Yuuki could barely remember his name anymore.)

Takaoka chuckled. “Yeah, probably not.” Then: “Hey, Mishima. Can I ask now, why you didn’t want to go home?”

“Can I still not answer?”

“Yeah, of course you can.”

“Good,” Yuuki said, rolling over and curling up, pulling the blanket with him. It smelled unfamiliar. Everything about this year was strange, that was for certain, but this felt the strangest, and though he was content not talking about it, he found himself saying, “One night I came back from practice, all covered in bruises and my mom—she thought I was doing drugs. Skipping out on practice to work or buy them or something. She only stopped when my dad told her to, and he wasn’t there today.”

Even though he’d promised to be a better father. Even though Yuuki had been pushing him away anyway.

“Shit,” Takaoka breathed.

Yuuki grunted agreement. “I don’t know if tonight would have been the same, but—it felt like it would have, and I just. Just didn’t want to deal with it. Not with all this other crazy stuff going on. You know?”

“Yeah,” Takaoka said. His sheets rustled as he turned onto his side. “But that settles it—I told your dad I’m taking you home tomorrow, and I am, but I’m also going to give her a piece of my mind. One of my teammates doing drugs. I can’t believe it.”

Yuuki didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing at all. Eventually Takaoka rolled over and fell asleep, leaving Yuuki wide awake in the dark, his head a buzzing mess of nerves.

* * *

Takaoka was all brilliant smiles in the morning. He let Yuuki sleep in for an extra hour, then left him to get changed into yesterday’s clothes—they’d been washed and dried overnight, and Yuuki shrugged them on, trying to remember how socks worked. He wound up wriggling across the floor, a sock slipping out of his weak grip, when he spotted the workbooks in the pile. Coding textbooks and advanced math and biology; how-to books on understanding literature and writing persuasively; sports medicine.

Takaoka really was trying, wasn’t he?

Yuuki barely remembered eating breakfast—rice, and eggs, and some salad, he thought, barely tasting any of it—and barely remembered Mrs. Takaoka leaving for the day, off to work or the supermarket or some other place. His head still buzzed; it was Takaoka who said, “Let’s head out, too. Get some air before we talk to your folks.”

“If they’re there,” Yuuki grumbled, aware of how rusty his voice was. Takaoka only laughed—at him, or how he sounded, or to psych him up—and ushered them out the door.

“Anything you wanna do?”

He wanted to crawl back into bed. He didn’t how long he laid awake, but it felt like hours—or maybe all his allnighters were coming back to haunt him. His gut churned. “Let’s just get it over with.”

The whole way home, Yuuki thought of all the ways this could go wrong: his mom wouldn’t listen, no matter how much his dad talked to her; she’d accuse Takaoka of being a drug dealer; she’d insist on taking Yuuki to get tested, _just to be sure_. Not even in his wildest fantasies did he think of her actually listening—the more he thought about it, the more he realized she never had. His last real decision had been to take up volleyball, and that had been four years ago. Four years of bench-warming at games; four years of practicing until he was ready to collapse; four years of a fat lot of nothing from his parents, who were too busy working to come out and see just how much better the rest of the team was compared to him. At least one of Takaoka’s parents was always at a game, even when it was small, even if they couldn’t stay for very long.

He was lucky. He had to know that.

Yuuki led the way up the street. Takaoka made his promised phone call, and Yuuki could hear the frown on his face as he said, “Well, they’re both home.”

“I thought you wanted to give them a piece of your mind?”

“I do, I just kind of wish I couldn’t hear your mother making comments about how she’s going to be late for work,” he said, stepping out of the way of an old lady laden down with shopping bags. Yuuki had given her a wide enough berth, but her bags still slapped against his, and she plodded on, not minding a thing.

If only he could be so carefree.

“Sounds like her, alright,” Yuuki said. “Sometimes I think she only comes home to harass me.”

“Is it that bad?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “Not… that bad. But, you know, it’s hard to tell what kind of mood she’s in. Sometimes she just glares and stuff. Dad says it’s stress.”

Yuuki hoped it was, anyway.

“Still, I don’t like it,” Takaoka said, ambling along. Compared to Yuuki, he seemed to be moving through molasses.

Yuuki swallowed down a wave of annoyance; it wasn’t his fault he was short, and it wasn’t Takaoka’s fault he was tall. He was already doing too much for a former teammate. There was no need to be so irritated that he was walking slow enough to match Yuuki’s pace, but Yuuki was irritated anyway.

It was his mom’s fault, and Takamaki’s for making him think too much, and Takaoka’s for sleeping so soundly while Yuuki laid awake, wondering why he felt so off.

And maybe it was Yuuki’s fault, too, for letting any of that bother him.

They took the stairs when they got to his apartment, just to prolong the inevitable—although Yuuki hoped that the extra time would give his mom time to storm out of the building and head to work—but sooner rather than later, they found themselves in front of his door. He dug in his bag for his keys. Takaoka took a deep breath to prepare himself, standing up straighter, taller. Yuuki hunched down; with any luck, his parents would only notice Takaoka. With any luck, his mom would expend all her wrath on Takaoka first.

But Yuuki was never known for his luck. He’d forgotten he’d thrown them at his mother; he wound up ringing the doorbell.

The door opened; he stepped inside, Takaoka at his heels. “I’m home,” he said, though it lacked enthusiasm. He couldn’t be blamed for that, could he?

“In here,” his dad said, heading to the kitchen.

They toed their shoes off, Yuuki’s still with that spot of dirt on his. He left his bag by the coat rack, shoved his hands in his pockets; Takaoka gave him an encouraging nudge. He forced his way forward, over to the kitchen, where his parents sat at the table nursing cups of tea. There were two more cups and an extra chair pulled up. Yuuki wondered whose idea it was that he and Takaoka could sit next to each other. Not his mom’s, that was for sure.

“So,” she said, with that tone he hated, “care to share what this is all about, Yuuki?”

“Um,” he said, but didn’t get much farther.

“Hiyoko,” his dad warned.

“I don’t see what there is to discuss,” she said, still sharp, still bitter. “I was doing nothing wrong asking where he was last night. _He_ was the one who ran out—”

“Because you scared him,” his dad said, at nearly the same time as Takaoka. They looked at each other; Hirotaka conceded with a slight nod.

Takaoka sat up even straighter. “You have to understand, ma’am, that your tone plays a very important role in this—”

“My _tone_?” she scoffed. “Is that what this is? I don’t sound friendly enough—”

“You sound like Kamoshida,” Yuuki said, staring at the table.

She gaped. Takaoka nodded. “You can’t just barrel on without a second’s thought to anyone else,” he said, and she turned to stare at him, a building rage in her flushed cheeks. “If Mishima says one thing and you think it’s another, you have to calm down and talk it out. Think about it. What happened the last time you two were alone together?”

“He’s my son,” she said, in disbelief. “I’m his mother. I have every right to know where he is! Just as I have every right to know what he’s doing!”

“You don’t,” Takaoka said.

“Excuse me—”

“Hiyoko, enough,” Hirotaka said. “Answer the damn question.”

“You can’t be agreeing with him!”

“I am. Let’s be honest with ourselves: if Yuuki was out doing drugs and getting caught up with the wrong sort of people, he wouldn’t be spending all his time on that site of his. The server fees alone are wiping out his allowance. There’s no reason to think he’s out doing anything suspicious—”

“A friend of mine from work saw him standing on a street corner in Shinjuku,” his mom said. A hole opened up in Yuuki’s stomach. “A man walked up, talked to him, and then they left together. You tell me how that’s not suspicious. What the hell am I supposed to think?”

Hirotaka shifted his gaze over to Yuuki, who was trying in vain to sink into the floor. “She saw him there all the way back in March? April?”

“Well, no,” his mom was forced to concede. “It was just last month—once the news broke about that coach, I thought that made more sense. But this! This isn’t something I can just ignore—”

Last month, he thought, thinking of street hawkers and the drag queens. The queens liked to people watch on that corner too, and after that first encounter they left him alone. He’d gone straight to Crossroads for the interview with Ohya. The only other time anyone had approached him and he’d left was—

“That was Amamiya,” he said, breaking off his mom’s tirade. Even Takaoka swiveled to stare at him. “The—the transfer student? He’s in my class? He’s”—the reason Kamoshida’s behind bars—“actually really nice. We’ve been… working on a project together.”

If he could call reforming society one rotten heart at a time a project, like it was a history paper.

If he could call what they were doing working together.

“That doesn’t explain what you were doing in Shinjuku,” his mom said.

He was scouting for good rumors—corrupt hosts, swindling escorts, sexual predators—and coming up empty, not because of a lack of trying. No one wanted to be the one outing a boss or coworker as problematic; no one wanted their face attached to a request. The Phan-site really was the best place to gather things like that.

Takaoka jerked. “The student council,” he said.

“What about them?”

“The student council president was asking around about—about students with jobs in Shinjuku,” Takaoka explained, and Yuuki blinked. When had Niijima done that? “I think—I heard she saw someone from Shujin enter some kind of cafe, and was worried she was being exploited. Amamiya and Mishima were just helping her gather information.”

“Oh, really? Am I supposed to believe that?”

“Amamiya’s friends with her,” Yuuki found himself explaining. Makoto Niijima—apparently she was skilled in some kind of martial art, though Yuuki couldn’t remember which one. Of course Takamaki would want her to spot for her. “He doesn’t think this kind of thing is a big deal. It’s just—just gathering information. The shops don’t have a reason to turn us away for that.”

At least, he hoped so. If his mom went to Shinjuku and started asking around, she was going to find that a lot of them turned up their noses at students, though Amamiya had mentioned several shops checking his ID before letting him browse the merchandise.

He was so much more daring than Yuuki could ever be.

His mom sighed. She still looked pissed—she had to still be pissed, being talked down to by a boy half her age—but said, “That doesn’t mean I’m okay with you going there. For God’s sake, Yuuki, it’s Shinjuku! I thought you had more sense than that!”

“Amamiya was with me,” he said, though he sounded small and pathetic and weak.

He sounded like nothing.

She shook her head. Hirotaka said, “Hiyoko, please—”

“No!” she shouted, slapping the table. “He’s my son! You’re my son! It’s fucking Shinjuku, you stupid little boy—do you have any goddamn idea how worried I was that you were getting roped into something worse than a fucking volleyball scandal? Do you have _any_ clue what it’s like to be looked at like you’ve raised a prostitute? Do you?”

“A—” Yuuki tried to say, but the words caught in his throat. A what? What did she just call him?

“I think that’s enough,” Takaoka stated. His face was frozen into the genial smile he wore at practice, though his eyes promised violence.

(Like Amamiya’s. When he’d said _I care what he does_ , Yuuki could see him wearing the same face. Like he’d burn the world down to spite one man.)

“I won’t let you talk to a member of my team like that, former or not,” he went on. “I don’t care if that’s what all your goddamned coworkers are calling him—if he’s your son, you should be sticking up for him. You should have asked what this was all about ages ago. You should have fucking listened. Instead you buried yourself in work, trying to make yourself look better. You don’t give a damn about him, and you’ve been too busy proving it to even think about what he might have to say for himself.”

“Taka—” Yuuki tried to say, but the look on Takakoka’s face went murderous; it stole the breath right out of Yuuki’s lungs.

Heroism, he thought, was a very dangerous thing.

“Someone like you is exactly the sort of person the Phantom Thieves are fighting against. Maybe they should steal your heart next. Maybe then you’d understand how damn awful you’ve been.”

From the look on her face, Yuuki expected her to kick Takaoka out, screaming insults at him all the while. She didn’t. She glanced at the clock, blinking rapidly (blinking back tears, but that was impossible, wasn’t it?) and said, “I’ve got to get to work now. I’m late enough already.”

Yuuki sat his chair, frozen. Takaoka did too; only Hirotaka got up to see her off at the door. They spent a while murmuring to each other.

Yuuki wondered how much trouble he was going to be in for this.

The door slammed shut; Hirotaka sighed and plodded back over to the table. He took a sip of tea and grimaced. “That was very rude, Takaoka,” he said.

“I know,” said Takaoka, still stiff as a board in his seat. The muscles in his neck were tight and jumped as he spoke. “But it was the truth. Sir.”

His dad shrugged. “Was that really what you were doing in Shinjuku, Yuuki? You couldn’t have—couldn’t have asked me for help?”

“You’ve been busy,” was Yuuki’s only excuse. “And he—Amamiya, he doesn’t trust adults all that much. If he saw you there, he might have just bolted.”

It was true, Yuuki thought: he hadn’t liked the adults schmoozing with each other at the Wilton. He never seemed to like the waiters and waitresses at the diner, either. Yuuki had seen him hanging out with a politician in Shibuya, and had stuck around long enough to figure out they’d made some kind of deal. It seemed to be the only way he could handle being around them, but Amamiya wouldn’t get anything out of Hirotaka, Yuuki was sure.

“Plus if the students who worked there found out they were dragging an adult around with them, it wouldn’t make them more likely to talk,” Takaoka added.

His dad only sighed again. He blinked, blearily, at the table. Then he said, “Yuuki. From now on, if you’re going to be out late—if you’re going to be hanging around in dangerous places like that—let us know. Can you do that?”

He didn’t want to. But if agreeing kept his mom from blowing up again, he had to. “Sure,” he said, knowing fully that he’d only keep his promise half the time. Sometimes Amamiya showed up, and sometimes he didn’t.

Those days were the worst, when he was left to wait without so much as a _no, thanks._

“Good,” his dad said anyway, and that was that.

* * *

Yuuki slid into a booth seat, his bag slipping off his shoulder. It seemed heavier than before—but that was impossible, he thought. The model gun didn’t weigh that much.

Maybe it was the book, then. Responsibility was so heavy.

Across from him, Amamiya looked over the menu. Yuuki wondered what he was doing to those glasses to make them so glaring; even in the corner booth, even with his head ducked, Yuuki couldn’t see past those damn glasses.

Then he wondered why he wanted to.

He ordered tea when the waitress came by, and then a plate of fries at Amamiya’s urging. It was hard to feel hungry with his stomach in knots; did Amamiya know they’d been spotted in Shinjuku? Should he bring it up? Would Amamiya even care?

Probably not. He was a Phantom Thief, after all.

Yuuki laid the gun and book out on the table. Amamiya made a questioning noise; Yuuki explained, “You know how it’s been lately. With Medjed out there about to cleanse Japan, I thought I should brush up on cyber security. The gun, well—it’s not real, so don’t worry, okay?”

“Looks like it is,” Amamiya said.

Yuuki laughed, a bit too disjointed. The shopkeeper at Untouchable had said that models needed special paint on the tip to keep from being mistaken for real guns, and Yuuki was inclined to believe him. The thing really did look real enough until he held it.

He tucked them both away, out of sight of the waitress coming back with their drinks.

“It’s just, you know, for protection,” Yuuki said. “Since I’ve been hanging around in Shinjuku and all. Don’t want to get dragged off by some drag queens, you know?”

Amamiya didn’t need to know about the death threats he was getting on the site. People were worried, and he was just one stupid kid running the place by himself. If anyone tracked him down he’d be a goner—but not with a gun. A gun would make them think twice.

“They’re not all bad,” Amamiya said, to his surprise. “If you tell them to back off and that you’re not interested, clearly, then they’ll leave you alone. But it’s definitely not a place you should go very often. You might give them ideas.”

“What kind of ideas?” Although Yuuki could guess. His mom said as much, didn’t she?

Amamiya only hummed, looking at him over the rim of his glasses. Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the waitress again, coming over with their food: Amamiya had ordered an enormous parfait that was easily as tall as her torso, and nearly as thick. Yuuki was surprised it didn’t snap her serving tray in two.

“One Totem Pole, one plate of fries,” she announced, and a separate waiter gave Yuuki his plate.

The table seemed to groan under the weight of the parfait in its glass stand, but Amamiya paid it no mind, sending the waitress off with a thanks. He tucked into it; Yuuki found himself impressed with the mindless devotion he put into eating it. It was almost like watching a hurricane, or a train wreck.

“You’re not eating,” Amamiya said at some point, and Yuuki snapped out his stupor long enough to laugh derisively at himself. He wound up talking Amamiya’s ears off about the Phan-site, about the influx of posts, about the tests coming up next month. He could barely see Amamiya’s head as he nodded along.

That was good, right? That was—he wasn’t just doing it and not listening, right?

“So, I’m gonna work even harder!” Yuuki promised to Amamiya’s bobbing curls. “I’ll find us some great targets—even if I have to keep putting myself in danger to do it! It’ll be worth it, when we’re famous!”

Amamiya gave him another look, frowning around his plastic spoon. Yuuki found a sudden interest in a splotch of ketchup on his plate; what had he said wrong? Was it the ‘we’? Did Amamiya not like being lumped in with a loser like Yuuki?

Yuuki understood that. It had to suck, being dragged down—

“Yeah,” Amamiya agreed. “It will be.”

“Huh?”

“I said it will be.” Amamiya tucked his spoon into the parfait, already mostly gone. “Though I don’t agree with you going out and doing dangerous work. I’d hate it if something happened because you were helping.”

“Oh,” Yuuki said.

“But it’s gotten us this far, danger or not. If—if you ever want to back out—”

“Hey!” came a loud, obnoxious voice. A chill ran down Yuuki’s spine; he had to force himself to turn, to face the trio of boys approaching their table. “I thought I saw someone familiar! It’s Mishima!”

“Uh,” Yuuki said. He couldn’t look at Amamiya. “H-hey, Akiyama.”

Akiyama snorted. “What, still can’t look people in the eye? That’s just like you. Say, you didn’t change your cell number, did you?”

“My—huh? No, I didn’t. W-why?”

If the gods had any mercy, they’d strike him down right then and there. But no ominous clap of thunder sounded; no car came crashing through the wall. Yuuki’s heart continued to hammer on. The plate of fries sat heavy in his stomach.

“Huh,” Akiyama said. “Well, it’s just that you missed our hangout last month. Everyone was there—‘cept you, but that must be a given. It’s just so damn hard to remember a nobody like you, you know?”

He could almost say the same. All his middle school memories of Akiyama and his gang of bullies were largely overwritten by Kamoshida. Everything he’d gone through back then seemed so innocent, so childish, in comparison—even the thing with Igarashi, who was staring at him like he was a bug he was trying to dissect. His glasses didn’t give off nearly the amount of glare that Amamiya’s did. Maybe it was proof he wasn’t important.

“I—yeah,” Yuuki said, laughing along, though it was stilted.

Not that Akiyama noticed. Not that he cared. “Well, geez, Mishima. It’s been great seeing you again, but we gotta get going. Maybe we can catch up sometime—if we can remember!”

He laughed again, sauntering out of the diner, his friends trailing along in his wake. Igarashi held Yuuki’s gaze far longer than he needed to, and Yuuki’s skin crawled: the diner was warm, almost stuffy, just like that empty classroom, and there was nowhere for him to go, just like before—

But then he was gone. Yuuki breathed a sigh of relief.

“Friends of yours?” Amamiya asked, shoving another spoonful of parfait in his mouth.

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to say that everything Akiyama said was a joke. He couldn’t. “No. They were—you know those guys in every class who get picked on all the time? That was me. They just… joined in on it. I guess it never gets old, huh?”

He laughed. Amamiya didn’t. “People are creatures of habit, I suppose,” he mused to himself.

It sounded like he wanted to suggest something—Yuuki could guess what it was, but Akiyama was small-time. A schoolyard bully wouldn’t do much to increase the Phantom Thieves’ fame, and—

If he was being honest, Yuuki didn’t trust himself with even the image of Akiyama on his knees, begging for Yuuki’s forgiveness. It felt like too much to hope for that same electric thrill as someone— _anyone_ —finally came to their senses and realized he wasn’t nothing, wasn’t nobody, wasn’t someone to be looked down on anymore.

As they parted ways, Amamiya said, “Yuuki. Just—don’t do anything too dangerous, okay?”

“I—yeah,” he said, starting to argue and then thinking better of it. Nothing could be worse than what Kamoshida put him through, but even he liked being alive. “Um, same to you.”

Amamiya didn’t dignify that with a response.

Like the fool he was, Yuuki chewed on that the whole way home: Amamiya barely looking at him as Yuuki chattered incessantly. Amamiya not even stepping in to say anything to Akiyama. He was probably laughing, too, on the inside. He was probably thinking Yuuki really was a loser, to spend so much cash on a fake gun that wouldn’t do jack shit if someone really threatened his life.

He started to call several times. He had to know what Amamiya thought, had to know if he was always going to be the same old nobody he’d always been, but stopped every time, thinking of the texts left unanswered, invitations to go scoping out targets shot down.

Amamiya was counting on Yuuki to find him targets, even small, petty ones. But Amamiya didn’t want to do that kind of work himself. He was too busy, hanging out with people with far more presence than Yuuki would ever have, working a dozen part-time jobs, being a Phantom Thief. That was why it was okay for Yuuki to do the dangerous grunt work of getting names; that was why it was okay that he was sacrificing sleep to manage death threats on the Phan-site.

Yuuki didn’t have anything else to offer.

But once the Phantom Thieves were famous, everything would be okay. He’d get more than enough call-out posts on the site that he’d never have to step foot in a place like Shinjuku ever again. Maybe he’d finally be brave enough to tell people like Akiyama that he, nobody Yuuki, managed the site. Maybe then he’d be somebody, somebody worth listening to, somebody worth remembering.

Maybe then he’d be somebody worth looking at, somebody worth talking to. Maybe then Amamiya would hold a damn conversation with him instead of nodding along as he talked and talked, like he was impatient to get through it all, like Yuuki was just someone he had to endure to reach fame and fortune.

Yuuki sniffed, eyes burning. Above him, thunder rumbled. A hot, stifling wind blew through the streets.

When that day came, Yuuki would be there. Amamiya and his Phantom Thieves and the rest of Tokyo—no, all of Japan—would have to accept that Yuuki was just as dangerous as they were. They’d have to accept that he, too, had helped reform society. They’d have to praise his name in equal measure.

As the first drops of rain hit his face, Yuuki swore that they would.


	10. The Moon, Rank 6

The summer heat was absolutely stifling.

Akira thought summer back in his hometown was bad. He remembered it being bad, anyway, and far more lonesome, with too many days spent wandering the town hoping to badger company out of some tourists waiting for their train or holed up in the library with its blessed air conditioning or at practice. But summer in Tokyo was torture.

He would know.

The sun was relentless, beating down upon the city like a Burst; he found himself moving carefully, waiting for the telltale earthquake or to hear that half the city had collapsed. Words jumped to his lips far more readily, ones that meant and did nothing here.

Morgana was used to his outbursts by now. Futaba was not; she paused in the middle of inhaling a small mountain of curry and asked, “What’s that song you’re singing?”

“Just something silly,” he said.

Morgana chimed in with, “He does it all the time. I’m surprised you didn’t hear him doing it while he was cleaning.”

“I could,” she said, toying with her spoon. “I just… wanted to know what it meant. The part I don’t understand, I mean. The—the ray part.”

“I’ve tried asking,” Morgana told her. “He never says. _I_ think it’s gibberish—”

His ears perked up; from down in the cafe the door jingled open and a familiar voice greeted Boss. One of the regulars, and one who spoiled Morgana rotten; she called for him after ordering, and he barely gave the two of his teammates a passing glance as he raced down the stairs. Before long Akira heard the regular cooing over Morgana’s silky fur and proud stance.

 _It’s not fair_ , he thought.

“He… isn’t a cat, right?” Futaba asked, confused.

“So he says,” Akira said, turning back to his food. Futaba dug her spoon into the side of her mountain, causing curry to race to the edge of her plate. If she had the whole cafe wiretapped, there was every reason to think—

“You can tell it to that wannabe detective but not your friends, huh?” she muttered.

“Goro is my friend,” he said, mind racing. “You know he grew up in the foster system. He never had a place he could feel safe. It’s a kind of code we came up with, so we could talk without him worrying.”

She let out a noise and shoved another bite in, contemplating as she chewed. “But it sounded like you guys had an—an acquaintance? Who made fancy desserts?”

“Just the one dessert, actually.”

He liked to forget those shortbread cookies, though Goro liked bringing them up just as much.

Futaba hummed some more, agitated with his non-answer. At this rate, they’d be going back and forth all evening, and Futaba needed her rest for their trip to the beach tomorrow.

He leaned back, rolling his shoulders and working at the ache in his neck. “I’ll tell you,” he said, and she nearly squealed with joy. “But it really is just a code, okay?”

“I won’t go narcing on the Detective Prince!” she promised, eyes glittering. “Cross my heart and swear to—uh, whoops.”

“Don’t feel bad. It’s just a saying.”

She nodded, bouncing right back to gleeful and excited. It really was odd, seeing her so different from the way she’d been just last week: not quite ready to throw in the towel but nearly there; hiding out in her room as if it was a fortress under siege; unable to trust even the people she begged for help.

If knowledge was all it took to keep her from going back into hiding, Akira could give it to her.

He hummed a few bars, thinking of lotus blossoms, stems as thick as skyscrapers as they stretched to the clouds. He thought of leaves fanning out over the city, their edges burning as Burst after Burst struck them. He thought of connecting to a hundred—a thousand—different lives, all pleading to be saved, the fear of their deaths overriding his fear of finally giving in and becoming a true part of the world.

Because once he Sang, he could never go back.

That was right: he’d been scared and unable to face it for the longest time. Facing that crowd, after spending so long locked away, all his words drying up on his tongue…

But that wasn’t him anymore, and it was all because of a Song.

“ahih rei-yah,” he sang, no longer seeing Futaba but a dozen little girls clutching at their mothers’ skirts, their eyes squeezed shut as the ground shook beneath them—

“ahih chei-yan”—and Arsene was at his side, pouring every bit of energy he had into the Song, his feathers puffed. The tron chain behind them gave out a blistering heat and sparked as Akira threw their processors into overdrive, making the blooms bigger, wider, thicker, stronger.

Akira would not accept failure. Not now, not here; not when lives were on the line, not after losing such a good, new friend. Just a child like those girls, even if he was smarter than most—

Just like Futaba, he thought with a start. He blinked; she came back into focus, Morgana at her side, their eyes wide with awe. Futaba’s curry was largely untouched, save for the sauce spilling onto the table.

“I knew you could sing, but—” Morgana said, one ear twitching.

“That was amazing!” Futaba exclaimed, jumping in her seat. “Now I know what people mean when they say live versions are better! How can I go back to YouCubed and MikoMiko after _that_?”

“I don’t make a habit of it,” he warned her, but she was too excited to care, bouncing in her seat at the prospect of more private performances.

Morgana gave him a shrewder look. “You never sang like that for me.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Now that Akira looked closer, Morgana seemed a bit more put out than calculating. Was that all it was? Jealousy? “I’ve never sung like that for anyone before. Call it my secret hobby.”

“It’s not so secret when you do it everywhere,” the cat grumbled.

Akira didn’t mention his earlier comment. Singing, not singing—it wasn’t like he was doing it on purpose. He ducked his head, reaching for a hank of hair. “Well, ah, all it means is… something like, ‘let’s work together to complete our goal.’”

Morgana humphed, ear twitching. Futaba ignored him, asking after every other part of the song she didn’t understand, her fingers flying as she jotted it all down on her phone, her curry pile looking sadder and sadder by the minute.

It felt good to talk about Ra Ciela with someone other than Goro. Futaba had no idea how awful it had been at first—and if Akira had his way, she would never need to. Adults were the same everywhere, ruining almost everything they touched just because they could—

He shook his head, cajoled Futaba into finishing her dinner, and walked her home. Leblanc was empty by the time he got back, the TV playing another rerun of one of Goro’s interviews. Akira watched the closed captions scroll on the bottom of the screen and wondered how much of it was scripted and how much of it was Goro.

From his face, not very much.

“Thought I heard someone come in,” Boss said, coming out of the kitchen. The curry pot was safely stored in the fridge, but the rice cooker still steamed away. Boss shoved a thumb over his shoulder. “You wanted to make something for tomorrow, right? Kitchen’s all yours.”

“Thanks,” Akira said. Morgana trotted down the stairs, hopped onto his usual perch by the bar, and let Boss scratch behind his ears.

As Akira dug out the tiered bento box he’d bought at the secondhand shop and laid out all of the pots and pans he’d need to make lunch, Boss cleared his throat. “Your parents never told me you could sing.”

“If it was too loud—”

“No, no,” Boss said, “it was good. The regular liked it. She actually stopped chattering just so she could listen better. You’ve got a knack for it.”

“I’m pretty out of practice,” Akira said, searching the fridge for the eggs and vegetables. That was what he’d told Yoshizawa, too, when she offered to teach him gymnastics: he was out of practice. There were things the body never forgot, but he found himself surprised by how much his mind had forgotten. That was the thing with spending years in another universe, he supposed.

And it wasn’t like his songs were going to save the world here. His voice had no power anymore. If there were gods out there, they would never listen.

 _ **How rude**_ , Isis sniffed.

Anubis gave a throaty, dog-like chuckle. _**You know what he means, Sister.**_

_**I do, but I still find it rude.** _ **We** _**are gods, are we not?** _

“You don’t much sound like it,” Boss said, with his own chuckle. Morgana purred, eyes narrowed to slits with pleasure, as he scratched under his chin.

“No, I am,” Akira said. The pans were ready: he poured oil into one, and slapped a square of butter on the other. “I couldn’t hit the high notes as well, this time. I shouldn’t have been using my throat for them, but I didn’t have much of a choice, and without any accompaniment my rhythm was off—”

“Jesus, kid, it’s a compliment. Just take it.”

If it had been Before, the whole of Yongen-jaya would be crushed under the weight of a Wave Burst. It wouldn’t have been enough. Akira and all these people he was gradually coming to know and care about would be dead.

But it wasn’t Before, he reminded himself. Before was over and done.

So why did it feel like it wasn’t?

“Right,” Akira said, turning his attention to the pans and the sizzle of oil and the bubbling of water. He’d never cooked this much before on his own, but it was better than whatever junk Ryuji and Futaba were going to buy on the boardwalk, and he had six mouths to feed, not including Morgana. “Um, thanks.”

“No problem, kid.” Boss went quiet for a while. The promised evening thunderstorm rolled in with a rumble; Akira reached for the bandana he kept by the fridge and found it dangling from Boss’s hand. Sweat trickled down his temple.

“You’ve got an awful lot going on in here, you know,” Boss said, eyeing the stove, the pans and pots, and the rice cooker as Akira slipped on the bandana.

He shrugged. “I just don’t want them to stuff themselves with boardwalk food.”

Boss hummed, likely thinking of Futaba and her stacks and boxes of instant ramen. She was going to pack some for tomorrow and they all knew it.

“Makoto said she’d make her own food, but I’ve got no idea how much she’s bringing,” Akira said, “and Ann said she’d bake some things and bring those, but the rest of them…”

Yusuke would eat seaweed right off the beach if he was hungry enough. Ryuji would find the saltiest, most unhealthy piece of boardwalk food and gorge himself on it. Akira was not going to let them do it.

They needed to eat better. Why didn’t they realize that?

“Well,” Boss said, reaching for his apron. “I do run a cafe. I’m capable of cooking things other than curry, I’ll have you know.”

“You don’t have to,” Akira said. “It’s late, and it’s raining. You should head home—”

“And leave you here, with this mess? I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. At least let this old man make the onigiri. I can do that much, can’t I?”

Akira shifted on his feet. The water boiled; the oil hissed. The kitchen was so damn hot, and all he could think of was getting it over with sooner and taking an ice bath across the alley before turning in. “And the sandwiches?”

Boss gave him a look. “How big is this army you’re feeding?”

“Pretty big. They’re teenagers, after all.”

“You’re one yourself. Did you forget that?”

With everything going on? With the years of fighting barely behind him? He hadn’t been a teenager in forever; he hadn’t been a teenager since the night he broke house arrest. How long ago had that been? Five years? Ten?

“Yeah,” he admitted, and handed Boss the rice scoop.

* * *

“Oh, it’s you again, Mishima!”

Hirotaka turned in his seat. The young man behind him raked his wet hair back with a hand, then grimaced as some of it found its way down his shirt. “Doctor Maruki,” he said. “What brings you out in weather like this?”

“Oh, you know,” the doctor laughed, though it was dry and brittle. He gestured to the open seat. “Do you mind if I sit? I feel like I enjoyed your company last time.”

Hirotaka hummed. He felt that way only because he’d gotten drunk in the first five minutes. “As long as you stick to water or soda. There’s… something I’d like your opinion on, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah.” The doctor nodded, sat, ordered. Diet something-or-other. Hirotaka hated drinks like that; they had no substance. “So it’s my sober opinion you’re after, then.”

“No offense, doctor, but you’re the biggest lightweight I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll admit, it’s certainly been a while…”

“Since you drank?”

“Right,” he said, and sipped at his soda. The little underground bar was filled with chatter; too many people escaping the sudden storm and dripping all over the seats. At the entrance, a young man paused at the door, his silhouette familiar with a sudden flash of lightning—then he was gone, back out into the storm. The bartender frowned.

“Someone you know?” the doctor asked him.

“Just a regular,” he said. “He doesn’t like the crowds much, I guess.”

Someone started up the karaoke machine in the back and sang along to an old enka song, terribly off-pitch in the way that only the truly drunk or truly tone-deaf could. The bartender winced. “Or that,” he added, throwing a dish towel over his shoulder and sighing.

Even Hirotaka found himself wincing as the grating voice continued to bellow out lyrics. Yuuki had gone through an idol phase just a year or two ago and Hirotaka had hated every minute of it, but bubble-gum pop was heaven compared to this.

Although he did remember one of them being oddly deep and sonorous for bubble-gum pop. Had that been an idol, too?

The doctor only laughed. “To each their own, I suppose,” he said, and inquired after the food in the place. Like the izakayas now rained out of business on the street, the bar had plenty of snacks. Maruki ordered enough for the both of them and slipped a few thousand yen under his coaster. “Just in case I forget the ban on drinking tonight,” he said. “I know you paid last time, Mishima.”

“I did,” Hirotaka said. He sipped at his beer, wanting to ask why it had been a while since the doctor went out drinking and realizing that it wasn’t any of his business, just like whatever was going on with Yuuki wasn’t his business. The boy was having a hell of a year. It was only natural that the stress was getting to him.

“And I thank you. I don’t think I would’ve gotten home on my own, either. So, what did you want my opinion on?”

 _Yuuki_ , he thought but didn’t say. Something was going on with his son and Hirotaka wanted to know what, but he wanted to hear it from him, and not from a doctor.

But this was important. Ever since Hiyoko brought it up, and ever since Yuuki and his team captain teamed up to shoot it down, it had been on his mind, as intrusive a thought as the one reminding him that his own son had been a punching bag for an Olympic athlete and Hirotaka hadn’t done anything about it.

“I, um,” he said, tapping at his glass. “Well, it’s just a rumor I heard, you see…”

“Oh?”

“About students getting jobs in Shinjuku. The red-light district.”

“Ah,” said the doctor, “and that bothers you?”

“They’re just teenagers,” Hirotaka said. Like his Yuuki. The handful of people he’d talked to in Shinjuku had seen his son that night—apparently he was a regular there, standing around on the street corner, waiting around for Amamiya. Everyone gave the same description: kind of tall, curly-haired, glasses, toted a cat around in his bag. Amamiya and some hawkers were the only ones to bother Yuuki after some terrible first day, a fortune-teller had assured him. She’d offered him a reading.

Hirotaka had never liked that mystical stuff, but he’d paid her for her time and left.

But he still worried. Just because the guy walking off with his Yuuki looked like Amamiya all the time didn’t mean it _was_ Amamiya all the time. Yuuki could be lying to him, could be covering up some big mix-up or… something. Something even worse. Something like what Hiyoko suggested.

He sipped his beer. He didn’t want to think about it, but it was Yuuki. He couldn’t help it.

“You’re worried they’re being exploited,” the doctor guessed, and Hirotaka nodded.

“Wouldn’t any parent?”

“Any good adult would, I think. But that’s just my opinion. The news has certainly been showing us that not everyone is as good at heart as they should be.”

The damn hackers. Hirotaka was glad they were caught, was glad nothing came of the shit storm that had been the past month—but couldn’t understand the fervor developing around the Phantom Thieves. They were vigilantes, even if they did good, and who was to say they were good at heart, too?

“I suppose I just wanted to know if anyone came to you about exploitation,” Hirotaka said, then thought for a second. “Not that—not that you have to tell me, of course. I only wanted to know.”

The doctor hummed for a moment. He prodded at a plate of cheese and sardines.

Then he said, “You’re worried about your son getting a job there.”

Hirotaka started; over at the karaoke machine, the enka song wound down to a smattering of drunken applause. Someone snatched the microphone away, picked his own song, and belted it out like the world was ending.

Which was almost true. It very nearly had.

Hirotaka scrubbed his face with a hand. “Is it so obvious?”

The doctor only laughed. “Anyone would worry, as I said. …But no, no one’s come to me for exploitation in that sense. It’s the usual jobs at convenience stores and such, and it’s never quite like… that.”

Like _that_ , like he couldn’t say it. Like _that_ , as if Hirotaka was a teenager himself, too squeamish on the topic of sex to even handle talking about it.

But maybe he was. He couldn’t say it, not the way Hiyoko could.

She was always braver that way. Hirotaka always hoped their child would inherit that. It was the one thing he put his foot down on in almost the entirety of their relationship: that name. Yuuki’s name.

“Hey, doc. What’s that you’re drinking?”

“Oh, it’s only cola.”

“I’ll take one too,” Hirotaka told the bartender, who nodded and rushed off.

“Done with your beer already?” the doctor asked, and had the nerve to look surprised.

Hirotaka only nodded. Maybe Yuuki got that from him, too: that shutdown, the one where his words simply stopped working. Yuuki got so quiet since joining that damn school, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Hiyoko was always the one who told him he just needed to try harder, to get through another day, as if waking up to do it all over again wasn’t what was wrong.

_How do I fix this? Do I sit around and wait for him to break again? Do I push him and hope he’ll blow up at me? What do I do, now that I can’t do anything?_

Thunder rumbled. The karaoke group laughed and clapped and made such a ruckus that Hirotaka wanted to scream at them to shut up, to take it down a notch, to just be quiet for two _goddamn seconds—_

And then it was quiet. Even the rain seemed to listen, dulling down to a gentle drum over a distant roof.

Doc said, “We’ll, um. We’ll take the rest to go. If you do that kind of thing.”

Hirotaka wrenched his eyes open—when did he shut them?—in time to see the bartender nod, and pull out a bunch of tiny styrofoam containers. They looked familiar.

That was right, he was visiting Yuuki and his fridge was full of them, every single one curry from some shop he worked at part-time. Hirotaka took some home because Yuuki had far too much to eat by himself and it was bound to go bad at the rate he was eating it. Yuuki, with his head propped up against the wall, had sniffed and said, “Akira would be so mad at me.”

Hirotaka was hauled out of his seat. Doctor Maruki was surprisingly strong, for a guy that was barely out of grad school. If he was even out. Or maybe he was one of Yuuki’s college friends—

“Mr. Mishima?” the doctor said, a paper bag full of take-out boxes swinging from his arm and an umbrella in the other. They stepped through puddles; rain soaked the hem of Hirotaka’s suit. “Are you alright now? Can you hear me?”

Hirotaka nodded. He could almost feel the surprise on his face: why was it so wet? Where was Yuuki?

“Can you say so, Mr. Mishima?”

He shook his head. If he talked, something was going to come out of him, and he wasn’t sure what. Something was wrong. He needed to find Yuuki. He needed to be a good father. Yuuki was hurting, and Hirotaka wasn’t there—

He stepped in a puddle and his foot sank in all the way past the mouth of his shoe; his sock soaked through instantly. It was warm from the asphalt.

“Mr. Mishima?”

“I told you to drop the ‘Mr.’”

“You did,” Maruki said. “But you were responding to it just fine just now, weren’t you?”

“Habit,” Hirotaka grunted. His sock squelched when he took a step, and he shivered at the feeling. Whatever felt so wrong was gone, at least for now.

Which only meant it was going to come back.

“Can I ask what was wrong, then? Are you feeling up to talking about it? We can call it even, since you listened to my drunken ramblings last time.”

The street was so gray. Kichijoji in the rain was so… lifeless. But anything was, with all the color leeched out of the sky.

“I don’t really know,” Hirotaka said, stepping in another puddle and shivering. It was bracing, the rush of water where it wasn’t meant to be. He thought of Yuuki on the roof of their apartment. He thought of going there himself. “What happened, I mean. It was—so loud, and I was trying to think but I couldn’t. I could only hear them yelling, and clapping.”

Rain on the umbrella. The paper bag transferred to Maruki’s other elbow so that it crinkled between them. Hirotaka stepping in every puddle he could find like he was five again, and not nearing fifty. The two of them, under the umbrella, the streets empty, what few stores were open spilling warm, yellow light into puddles that looked like the moon trapped in the pavement.

Maruki’s voice was soft, almost clinical. “And then what? Do you remember what happened next?”

“It got quiet. I thought it’d be nice if it did, and then it did. But I must have done something foolish. Did I yell?”

“You did.”

“Did I get my drink, at least?”

“You made the bartender spill it.”

Well, that was fine. Yuuki had soda and such at home. Or Hirotaka could buy some.

He wondered if Yuuki ate dinner. Probably not.

Hirotaka could make something. Buy some groceries, be a proper father for once. Even Yuuki’s boyfriend—

He tripped, sprawling out face-first on the pavement. Maruki was at his side in an instant as he flipped over, all concern, his paper bag swinging dangerously close to the puddle Hirotaka was laying in. “Mishima! Are you alright? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Hirotaka said. The sky was so gray, so dark. “I was thinking of buying groceries. Making dinner. Yuuki can’t have eaten yet, he’s been so glued to that laptop of his. But—”

It was already slipping away. Something of Yuuki’s, something about food. Was someone teaching him to cook? Who was doing that? The Internet?

He shook his head. Maruki extended a hand and helped him to his feet. The rain was warm, but once he was out of the puddle, the night was cold. He felt greasy.

“Mr. Mishima, I’m going to be honest: you’re worrying me right now,” Maruki said.

“Me too,” Hirotaka told him. “I don’t—I don’t know what it is. What’s wrong. I don’t know.”

( _ **THREADS**_ , Azathoth said, with all the grace and humility of a mountain. _**HE’S TANGLED. IT HURTS HIM. YOU SNIP THEM, HE WON’T HURT ANYMORE.**_

 _But what will he lose?_ Takuto asked.

Azathoth only writhed and hissed. Takuto knew the feeling all too well.)

Hirotaka laughed. “Maybe I’m the one who needs a counselor. Look at me. How can I take care of my son like this?”

Maruki nodded. “Maybe you do. I can give you some recommendations, if you’d like. I’d offer, but I’m afraid my work with the school prevents me from taking on new patients right now.”

“I’d like that, please,” Hirotaka said, with a bow. “Please. My son, he wants to get married—”

He choked. Married? Married to who?

“Mishima?”

“I just. I have to be a better father,” Hirotaka said. His hands were shaking.

“I’m going to keep walking you to the station,” Maruki said, tucking his umbrella between them and guiding Hirotaka along with a hand on his back. “Or do you want a cab?”

“I need to help Yuuki,” Hirotaka said. “He needs me. Hiyoko doesn’t want him—”

“Perhaps you should stop, Mishima? If talking is causing you discomfort—”

“He was in Shinjuku, like those kids with jobs.” The rain was so cold. He was covered in something thick, and oily. It clogged him up, until the only other way out was up. “He was—he left with a boy. He said it was a boy from school. It might not have been. He said it was Akira, his boyfriend. They’re going to get married. Hiyoko doesn’t want him to be like this.”

Maruki took a deep breath, bracing himself. “How did he and Akira meet, then? Has he said?”

Hirotaka could only shake, but after a while he looked to the sky, covered in clouds. Rain spattered over his face, dripped down his collar. He said, “Akira saved his life. He was—in the stars, and—and Yuuki—”

Try as he might, he couldn’t say anymore. Maruki called him a cab at the station and sent him home with the leftovers.

( _ **SNIP SNIP**_ , Azathoth said, and laughed.)

* * *

Yuuki glanced up from his phone only when Amamiya stopped in front of him. He wore his usual outfit—plain button-down, black undershirt, jeans—that no one else in Shinjuku cared to wear. It was too plain for the showy hawkers giving Yuuki the stink-eye and far too casual for the pair of drag queens taking selfies on the other side of the alley.

Not like Yuuki was any better, in his long-sleeve tee despite the heat. He was wearing holes in the cuffs. It was the only shirt in his closet that fit him that wasn’t school related; everything else was a size too small and sat too snug on his shoulders. Amamiya clearly didn’t have that problem. He probably had a dozen button-downs in his attic somewhere.

“Hey,” he said, shoving his phone in his pocket. The forum could wait for now; Amamiya deserved his attention. After taking down Medjed it was the least he could do.

“Been busy?” Amamiya asked, shoving his glasses up his nose.

“Am I ever!” It was actually nice to be busy working on the site all the time. Sure, he wasn’t getting much sleep, but who needed to sleep? He could sleep all he wanted when he was dead—for right now he was fielding all kinds of comments about the Phantom Thieves, from glorious and praise-ridden to downright worshiping. “Everyone loves the Phantom Thieves! Not as much as I do, of course, but still! Have you seen the comments on the site?”

“Some of them,” Amamiya said, hiking his bag a little higher. It squirmed; a pink nose poked out of the opening. The cat chittered something, and Amamiya nodded. “Morgana likes the praise, too.”

Yuuki didn’t understand what the cat had to do with the Phantom Thieves, but grinned all the same. “Oh, thanks! I’ll be sure to do everything I can to keep it rolling in! And, uh, on that note—there was something I wanted to talk with you about. If you’ve got time.”

“Sure,” Amamiya said, with another shrug.

Yuuki glanced around at the foot traffic—people, everywhere; the hawkers giving him the side-eye; the drag queens tittering about Akechi and how good he’d look in a dress—and said, “Let’s go somewhere a bit quieter, yeah? I wouldn’t want anyone to overhear.”

Amamiya only shrugged.

Yuuki wound up taking them to Inokashira Park. He liked the quiet there when it was late enough that no one wanted to visit. The park at night was both gloomy and ethereal—he lived for the nights when the moon was full and the lamps were all out and the light that washed over everything was a cool blue, like sinking into the bottom of the lake.

Amamiya’s cat ran off down the path as soon as they sat down. They watched him go; Yuuki almost asked if it was okay for him to leave, but Amamiya gave no sign of caring. “You were saying?” he asked.

Right. Work. That was all Yuuki was good for, but that was okay! The Phantom Thieves were going to be even bigger hits after this one; he scrolled through his phone, searching for the tab he’d left open and showed it to Amamiya. “This guy!” Yuuki declared. “He’s a popular up-and-coming actor. He’s young, he’s handsome, he’s got great skills—he’s been in all the new commercials lately.”

Amamiya didn’t seem impressed. He tossed one leg over the other and stared, impassively, infuriatingly, at the screen. _Why?_ he seemed to be asking. _Get to the point already._

“He’s got to be doing some kind of shady business behind the scenes,” Yuuki explained. It was too much like Kamoshida, like Madarame. Couldn’t Amamiya see that? “He’s supposedly dating a famous idol, but I’m not so sure. He has to be doing something to her—most of the gigs he’s been getting are through her talent company. They spend an awful lot of time together. I don’t like the look of it. For her sake—for the sake of her fans—can you at least try?”

He knew it was all stupid, baseless rumors. So what if an actor and an idol wanted to date? So what if it gave Yuuki a squirming, nauseous feeling that kept him up late into the night? So what if the only ones who cared were her fans?

The Phantom Thieves had never let their target’s popularity stop them from changing their heart. Why should this be any different?

“We’d need more than just a rumor, Yuuki,” Amamiya said.

Yuuki grit his teeth. That was okay. They’d gone around asking lots of questions before taking Kamoshida’s heart. Maybe they needed the information. But… “Look, I know something else is going on, okay?” He worried at the holes in his sleeves. “Something—something has to be going on. That’s how the entertainment industry is, you know? You step on everyone you can to get ahead. He’s just using her. I _know_ it.”

They had no problem taking down Medjed just because the public asked them to—no, _needed_ them to. They hadn’t needed confirmations of rumors then. They hadn’t needed proof, just the threat of what Medjed could do to the economy—the threat of ruining hundreds of thousands of millions of lives all at once, for no other reason than that they could.

Medjed was proof the Phantom Thieves could stop crimes before they happened. Medjed was proof they could act as the public willed them to. So, why?

Why did Amamiya look so thoroughly unimpressed?

“Look,” Yuuki said, “this is what the public wants. If you do this, the Phantom Thieves will be even more popular, and I’ll be able to bring you even more names! The more people who know, the more people will come to us with their problems! It’s a win-win!”

“Us?” Amamiya asked.

“I’m your manager, aren’t I?” Yuuki couldn’t look at him anymore. He wound up staring at a bush on the other side of the path, its leaves bright and green on one side and dark with shadow on the other. Just like that actor. Just like Kamoshida. “I field the requests, do the research, and get you names. You take those and change people’s hearts. I’m helping you, aren’t I? I’m doing—doing _something_ , right?”

He could hear Akiyama already: _Still just a loser._

He could see Igarashi staring and staring and staring, as if he was waiting for Yuuki to do something interesting. But Yuuki had the gun now. He’d never be trapped like that again.

If Yuuki got popular enough, he would never have to worry about being alone like that ever again. Someone would always want to spend time with him, someone would want to hang off his every word, someone would always have his back… and he could only get popular enough if the Phantom Thieves got popular enough. This was going to get them—maybe not popular enough, but closer to it.

And it was the biggest target he could find. An _actor_. Everyone knew actors did all kinds of questionable jobs for even the smallest gig; why should this guy be any different?

Yuuki took a deep, bracing breath, flipped his phone over, and sent Amamiya everything he’d dug up on the actor.

He could do all the research he wanted with that. But in the end, Yuuki knew he would change his heart. Amamiya hadn’t turned down any of his requests before; the Phantom Thieves were desperate for targets. They couldn’t afford to be picky.

Amamiya made a questioning noise.

“You can think it over if you want to, but I know it’s the right thing to do,” Yuuki explained. “You change his heart, you’ll get even more popular. Have I led you astray yet?”

“… No,” Amamiya admitted.

“And I’m not going to,” Yuuki said. He thought he saw bright blue eyes, shining out of the dark, and shivered. “I’m your manager. The—the only reason you guys have gotten this far is because of me. You’ve said so. So your success is my success, just like your failure is my failure. As long as we keep working together, we can keep changing the world.”

And if they were changing the world, one heart at a time, Yuuki wouldn’t be a loser anymore. He would never have to worry about people like Akiyama or Igarashi or Kamoshida ever again.

He stood up, grabbing his bag, tucking his phone inside. “If I find anything else out about that actor, I’ll let you know. I, um. I guess I’ll see you later.”

Amamiya didn’t stop him from leaving.

What stopped him from walking right out the front gate was his bladder, fit to bursting now that he didn’t have Amamiya’s attention anymore. The bathroom by the front gate was closed for cleaning, so Yuuki went down the path to the fountain, where another bathroom sat waiting in the scant light of the lamps. There was an odd smell in the air, but he did his business, checked his bag for his phone, and slammed into a broad chest standing right outside the bathroom door. It reeked of whatever smelled so bad in the bathroom; Yuuki’s eyes watered at the smell and the pain in his nose.

He heard laughter and looked up. Crowded around the bathroom door was a gang of delinquents—actual ones, not like Amamiya was supposed to be—with their hair gelled up into pompadours and chains rattling from their belts. One of them blew smoke and passed a cigarette to the next guy.

“Oh,” someone drawled, and Yuuki shivered despite the heat. He knew that voice. “It’s you, huh, Mishima?”

“Igarashi?” Yuuki muttered, but couldn’t find him. His eyes burned with tears; he squeezed them shut.

“We don’t need to worry, guys,” Igarashi told the group, to a bunch of protests. “Mishima here won’t tell anybody. Isn’t that right, Mishima?”

He nodded, heart beating a bruise against his chest. He was still a nobody, but that was good for now, right?

“Right!” Igarashi said, clapping someone on a shoulder. “I’ll make sure he knows not to talk about it. You guys head on home. I’m the only one he recognizes anyway. Isn’t that right, Mishima?”

His eyes felt a little better. He dared a peek: Igarashi, sans glasses, his hair slicked back—not with gel, it didn’t seem solid enough for that, and it looked oddly messed up, like it wasn’t deliberate—and the glowing cherry-red tip of a cigarette jutting from his mouth. His eyes threatened violence; Yuuki nodded again.

The whole group stood there, scowling, for a good minute or two before the guy whose chest Yuuki had barreled into growled out something and turned. He pulled the cigarette out of Igarashi’s mouth and tugged him in for a kiss, something long and slow and deliberate that set the group howling and Igarashi winding his arms around the other boy’s neck.

Yuuki barely felt it when his back collided with the bathroom door, too fixated on Igarashi, and the noises being pulled out of his throat, and the wet, slick sound as they parted for air over and over and over again, and the way Igarashi chased the other boy, tugging him back down for more as he tried to leave. The boy chuckled, shoved the cigarette back in, and sauntered off.

The rest of the gang followed, some of them leering, some of them hurrying to finish their smokes before smashing the remains into handkerchiefs. They were barely out of range when Igarashi turned, paused long enough to blow smoke, and said, “Fucking hell, Mishima. Don’t tell me you liked the show that much.”

Yuuki shook his head. “No,” he tried to say, but his voice cracked and splintered, and if he tried to move he would collapse on the spot.

“Huh,” Igarashi said, looking him over, his eyes lingering far too long.

Too late, Yuuki remembered the gun in his bag. He reached a hand in to grab it, only for Igarashi to close the distance between them in a handful of steps and twist his wrist to a painful angle. Up close, his lips were swollen and slick with spit; his breath reeked of smoke and something more pungent than simple tobacco. The cigarette didn’t look like a cigarette at all; it looked as if it had been rolled by hand, and lacked a filter.

Just his goddamn luck to run into a bunch of pot smokers at the park.

“I won’t tell,” Yuuki said, trying not to breathe too much as Igarashi yanked the bag off his shoulder, his hand still in that lock. “I swear—I swear I won’t tell, please let me go, I swear I won’t—”

“Damn right you won’t,” Igarashi muttered, dripping ash into his bag as he dug through it. Then he huffed a laugh, blowing smoke in Yuuki’s face, letting the bag fall. In his hand was the gun.

He turned it over, letting it catch the light from the lamps and made a noise of appreciation. “Didn’t peg you for the type, Mishima. Don’t tell me the loser boy’s finally growing up.”

“It’s not real,” Yuuki felt the need to explain. “It doesn’t even work, it’s just a toy—”

He broke off as Igarashi pressed the barrel into the hollow at the base of his throat, harder and harder until Yuuki couldn’t breathe, and pulled the trigger with a click.

Nothing happened. Igarashi let him go; Yuuki, his knees turned to jelly, slid to the ground.

He could hear Igarashi root around in his bag some more, fiddling with his wallet and playing with his phone, making little noises of discovery until he got bored.

“So, Mishima,” he said. “What brings you out here so late at night, huh?”

“Just a—a walk,” Yuuki croaked out.

“A walk?”

Yuuki nodded. “Just a walk. It’s—it’s quiet. I like it when it’s quiet. I won’t—I won’t tell anybody, I swear—”

“That’s right, you won’t.” Igarashi patted a calf; where his hand touched Yuuki’s skin burned, like he’d been scorched by a flame, even through the thick fabric of his khakis. “Or I’ll tell everybody about the gun you’ve got. Pretty sure that shit’s illegal, Mishima. Even if it is a toy.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuki said, though he wasn’t sure what for. “I’m sorry. I swear I won’t tell, please—”

“Just shut up, Mishima.”

Yuuki did, snapping his mouth shut with a click of his teeth. Was this karma for the actor? Amamiya hadn’t even done anything yet. It wasn’t fair.

Igarashi, though, kept talking. “The fuck am I supposed to do with you? As soon as I let you go you’ll go squealing to that Phan-site thing. You’d be into that, wouldn’t you, Mishima? Somebody being your own personal hero? Somebody saving poor little you from the big, bad bullies?”

Yuuki shook his head. Igarashi took another drag off his joint and said, “Liar.”

“No,” Yuuki said, and snapped his mouth shut again at the glare that earned him.

“Liar,” Igarashi repeated. Yuuki was almost impressed at how he managed to blow smoke out of his nose. “That’s exactly what you are. A liar. You’d like it, if somebody saved you. Paid attention to you. Gave you a teeny bit of their time. You’d eat it up, ‘cause you’re a damn loser, Mishima. You know how I know?”

Yuuki shook his head. He didn’t know, or didn’t want to know, or didn’t want it said aloud. Amamiya was still out there, in the park. Yuuki couldn’t be sure he’d gone home.

“‘Cause no matter how bad me and Akiyama and Ushijima treated you, you kept on coming back for more.”

“That’s not—”

“Sure it is,” Igarashi said. “It’s the fucking truth. Poor little Mishima, laughing along as we made fun of him, over and over again. Laughing when we told him he was too scrawny and short to be much good on the volleyball team. Laughing when we told him he was too stupid to get into a fancy school like Shujin fucking Academy. Did you like the volleyball team there, Mishima? Did that molester coach give you plenty of attention?”

“Stop it,” Yuuki said, hands reaching for his ears to block out the noise, because Igarashi was lying, he had to be—

Igarashi grabbed his wrists and slammed them against the door, pressing and pressing against Yuuki like a live firecracker. The stub of the joint burned against Yuuki’s jaw.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have liked it, huh, Mishima,” Igarashi said, his voice low. “That’s me. _My_ fucking truth is that I really, _really_ like guys like those gangster boys, and Akiyama, and _you_. You get me? But I gotta get good grades, go to a good school, marry some pretty girl and have a dozen kids if I don’t want to get cut out of dear old Mom and Dad’s will. I laugh when my shitty friends at school make fun of guys like me. I laugh when they come up with every name in the goddamn book to call us—”

 _Us?_ Yuuki wanted to question, but was too aware of the way Igarashi’s joint was trying to burn him to say it.

Igarashi must have heard it anyway. “Yeah, us. People like me, people like you. You’re a goddamn idiot, hanging around in Shinjuku like that, you know? Anybody could have seen you. _I_ certainly did. What’s your little hero’s name, huh?”

Yuuki shook his head. The joint rubbed a hot smear of fire and ash across his chin.

Igarashi snorted. Smoke rushed out of his nostrils only to drift in tendrils around them; Yuuki coughed. “Don’t tell me, that’s fine. I wouldn’t want anybody finding my fuck buddies either, I get that. Illegal hobbies aside and all.”

That made him laugh. Yuuki wasn’t sure what was so funny. His wrists ached and his hands tingled with the loss of circulation.

He just wanted to go home. He should have gone straight to the station; the station had bathrooms, and cleaner ones. Why had he come here, instead? Was it like what Igarashi was saying, that he wanted to bump into Amamiya again? Even if they didn’t talk, Yuuki almost enjoyed his company. He just wished Amamiya knew how to take orders.

“There, see?” Igarashi said, this time pleased with himself. “It’s not so hard to figure out. Let me guess, though: you’re too much of a chicken to do much more than hold his hand. Poor little Mishima.”

“I don’t like him like that,” Yuuki said.

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t. I don’t, we’re—we’re just friends. Barely that. He just… listens to me… talk…”

And listened and listened and listened, barely saying a word edgewise, and almost always what Yuuki wanted to hear. Except today, where he’d been all questions. Amamiya wasn’t supposed to do that. Amamiya was supposed to do whatever Yuuki told him to, no questions asked, with a big, grateful smile on his face.

Not that Yuuki had ever seen him smile. Not that Yuuki had ever gotten a word of thanks without mentioning it first. Even Ryuji was better than that. Even _Takamaki_ was better than that.

“Huh,” Igarashi said. “You having a brainstorm in there, Mishima?”

“No.” Yuuki bit his lip; he _was_ a liar. He wanted more from Amamiya than Amamiya wanted to give. He wanted Amamiya to dance when Yuuki told him to; he wanted Amamiya to ask how high when Yuuki said jump. He wanted Amamiya to praise his efforts without questioning how much sleep he was getting or what he was eating or why his grades were so bad, like he was Yuuki’s mom.

Yuuki had a mom. Too bad his mom had called him a prostitute to his face.

“Yeah, you are, you fucking liar.” Igarashi laughed again, then cursed; his joint was almost out. He rolled it around with his tongue, smearing more ash on Yuuki’s chin, and said, “Let me do something I’ve always wanted, yeah? Hell, maybe it’ll help you get over yourself, you fucking loser. You wanna hold your pretty hero’s hand forever after this, be my fucking guest.”

“I don’t—” _want to_ _hold his hand_ , Yuuki tried to finish, but Igarashi cut him off with a kiss. It was as slow and deliberate as the one he gave the gangster’s leader, and Yuuki could taste the pot he’d been smoking, could feel the smoke curling down the back of his throat as Igarashi took the last few pulls off his joint and shared it between them. It made Yuuki’s throat spasm, but Igarashi swallowed every cough with an enthusiasm Yuuki couldn’t understand and didn’t want to, the same way he didn’t want to understand the way heat was beginning to pool in his stomach or the way he was letting Igarashi press ever closer or how good it felt to be absolutely, utterly defenseless as Igarashi pinned him to the door.

To be weak again. To have lost control and have no blame.

None of this was his fault. None of it.

Somewhere in the dark, a cat yowled.

Yuuki jerked, biting down and catching Igarashi’s bottom lip and a mouth full of ashes; Igarashi reared back and the joint fell from his lips to scorch a hole in Yuuki’s khakis. Amamiya’s cat ran out of the bushes, climbed atop Yuuki’s shoulder, and curled around his neck, hissing and spitting. His claws dug in for purchase as Yuuki choked and coughed until he retched, spitting up bile.

Igarashi only laughed. “God, you’re just too much fun to fuck with, you know that?” He wiped spit from his chin. Yuuki was disappointed to see that he hadn’t broken skin, but was more glad he didn’t have Igarashi’s blood in his mouth. Who knew what the guy had been up to over the last two years?

Yuuki gave the cat support—his claws were seriously sharp, and if Yuuki didn’t have bloody scratches after this, he would be surprised—though his hands ached as feeling rushed back into them.

Igarashi eyed them both for a long while. He said, “Guess your pretty hero boy’s given you a spine, huh, Mishima? Or—” He broke off with a snicker.

Yuuki could guess what was so funny. He didn’t want Igarashi to say any more. “Just go,” he said. His voice was hoarse. It was the smoke. It had to be. “Just—leave me alone.”

“Sure thing,” Igarashi said with a shrug. “But I’ll warn you: you show up again, I won’t stop with a little bit of teasing. You’re my type, after all. Strong guys are nice but weak ones are way better.”

He eyed them again. Yuuki tried to imagine what he looked like: lips swollen, ash smeared across his face and shirt, wrists halfway to bruising. He was already on his ass, but his legs shook, and Igarashi appreciated every second.

He looked like Kamoshida, when he was leering at the girls. It made Yuuki sick.

Igarashi said nothing else. He turned and walked off, running a hand through his hair; Yuuki watched him go until he was nothing but shadows on the path. He sagged, and Amamiya’s cat finally relaxed, turning to look at him with those bright blue eyes. He actually looked concerned, but that was ridiculous. He was a cat.

“Um,” Yuuki said, wincing at the pain in his throat. “Thanks.”

Now he looked pleased.

Maybe he really _was_ a smart cat.

“I guess I don’t have to ask you not to tell anyone about this, huh? I mean, you can’t. You’re a cat.”

That got him a nick of sharp claws. Okay, no telling the cat he was a cat, got it.

How did Amamiya deal with him?

Yuuki reached a hand out. He was sure he never saw Amamiya pet the thing, and Morgana gave his hand a wary look before settling down on his lap with resignation. Yuuki swore he sighed as he stroked soft fur, silky under his fingers. Amamiya clearly took care of him.

Amamiya. He’d come looking soon. Yuuki was surprised the security guard hadn’t been by yet; the park was almost closed. He didn’t like the idea of someone wandering by and finding him like this, looking like he’d done something wrong. He didn’t like the idea of _Amamiya_ wandering by and finding him like this. Would he give one of his impassive stares? Would he help with that infuriating blank look on his face?

Why was it that, out of the two of them, Yuuki was the one who was always excited to see him, and not the other way around?

Now his throat hurt for a different reason. Morgana looked up at the first shaky gasp of air as Yuuki gripped the hem of his shirt and twisted with his hand until his fingers ached. The cat meowed; Yuuki bit his lip. His mouth tasted like ash and smoke and death. An itching, burning feeling filled him all the way up: he was still nobody. Even to Igarashi, he was nobody. He was just another toy to play with until he got bored and was thrown away.

… He didn’t want Amamiya to throw him away. He was useful. He was the Phantom Thieves’ manager! He was making them into what they were now! No one else could claim that!

 _I’ve got to be strong,_ he decided. _I’ve got to be so strong that no one will ever dare to mess with me again. I’ve got to be so strong that_ they’ll _be the ones begging_ me _to use them. I’ve got to be._

_And if I want to be strong, the Phantom Thieves need to be strong, too._

So they’d better get off their asses and do his fucking request.

* * *

Akira waited for Morgana by the gate to the park, swatting at mosquitoes and checking his phone every so often. The target Yuuki wanted them to go after stared up from a publicity photo: young, and handsome, and grinning with the kind of pride that spoke volumes of how hard he worked to earn even the smallest award.

What Yuuki said did have a grain of truth in it: just because he looked nice didn’t mean he was, and just because his bio was squeaky-clean didn’t mean he wasn’t doing shady stuff on the side.

Akira sighed.

“Akira!” came Morgana’s voice, and the not-cat barreled down the path, right by the guy just getting done cleaning the bathrooms.

Akira squatted down, holding his bag open—but Morgana paused, little chest heaving, one ear twitching. He looked back the way he came once, then twice.

“Did something happen?” Akira asked. The guy cleaning the bathrooms gave him a look, but shrugged and wheeled his cart away.

Morgana groaned, looked back down the path again. When he turned back around, he drooped. “No, I—I just got a little lost. That’s all. Because—because you took off like that, and I didn’t know where you went, and do you know how _big_ this park is?”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t go too far.”

He groaned again, stepping into the bag. “Just—be more careful next time!”

Maybe it was Akira’s imagination, but there was an odd, singed smell to the air as he hefted his bag on his shoulder. It was the cleaning supplies. Too much bleach on a hot, muggy night like tonight; it would kill anyone’s sense of smell.

“Sure,” he said, and headed for the station.


	11. The Moon, Rank --, Part One

The more Takuto thought about it, the less it made sense.

Threads. Azathoth said, specifically, that Mishima the elder was tangled, like a fly in a web. He certainly acted like it, in the few minutes between the bar and the station: mumbling about his son, and a boy named Akira, and weddings, among a whole host of other things.

But Mishima the younger wasn’t dating anyone—not to Takuto’s knowledge, and the teachers at Shujin were all even bigger gossips than their students, though they did give him odd looks for asking around.

Well. Maybe it was kind of odd, meddling in the student’s love lives.

He threw his hands up with a guttural groan. Azathoth laughed and writhed with humor and Takuto spent the better part of a minute paying for his frustrated stretch by massaging out a leg cramp; life was only good for the young and spry, and Takuto wasn’t going to be either for much longer.

A walk would be nice. But in Tokyo’s unforgiving heat he wasn’t going to feel much better after, and he had so much work to be doing, so many threads of ideas that Akira was… giving him…

It. It couldn’t be the same Akira, could it?

No, it couldn’t. Mishima the elder was adamant that _that_ Akira was among the stars, whatever that meant, and the Akira Takuto knew was decidedly not.

But that look he got in his eye at times, during their sessions (when Takuto could tell, anyway, and being a fellow glasses-wearer knew the struggle), as if he was far away, lost in that wonderful dream he’d had… Almost as if he remembered every moment, as if it was as real as his waking life.

Threads. And Akira. And—

(“Where is Akira?” he asked.

“He’s not here,” said the sullen boy in front of him, looking very much as if he would like to burn the whole orphanage down, if not the whole world. He looked as if he knew how to and was frustrated that he couldn’t, and Takuto wondered what kind of field he was getting into. Could he really do this for the rest of his life? Watch as angry children became angry people and only try to listen?

“If he’s not here,” Takuto asked, pressing, hoping, “then where is he?”

That only earned him a harder glare. “Not. Here,” the boy spat.

Takuto hated this job. He wanted to help, but his instructions said otherwise. “Then, perhaps this boy you’ve been calling knows?”

The boy leaped from his chair. “Don’t bring Ren into this! He’s not Akira yet—”

And try as he might, Takuto couldn’t get him to say another word.)

He leaned back in his chair. It squealed in protest.

A knock came at the door, and he jolted, nearly losing his balance. “Y-yes, come in,” he called. He hoped it wasn’t a sports injury. He wasn’t very good with bandages.

It was Ms. Kawakami, looking even more exhausted than ever, a thick folder of papers in her arms. “Hello, Doctor,” she said, sliding the door shut. “I hate to bother you, but do you have a minute?”

“More than just that,” he assured her, shutting his laptop and covering all of his research notes. Not that she could make sense of them, but part of him didn’t want anyone else to get even a glimpse of what he was doing. Not when he was so close to finishing. “Is there something I can help you with?”

She glanced around the room. Takuto’s mouth went dry; he knew that look. It was not a good one. “I, um, kind of wanted to ask you something. About one of the students,” she said.

“I can’t divulge anything, I’m afraid.” He would lose their trust, and after taking so long to earn it, he didn’t want to give it up. “I’ve assured them that anything they tell me is confidential, so—”

Ms. Kawakami twisted her lips. “I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“Then, perhaps you can ask them yourself? I’m sure they would appreciate your—”

She snorted. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself, so he went to the fridge and grabbed some cartons of juice. A nice treat, when it was so hot outside. “I have asked,” she said, “and I’ve been assured, over and over, that the behavior in question won’t happen again. And then it does. Rinse and repeat, and I’m getting sick of it. I just—I want to know _why_ he keeps doing it. That’s all.”

He took a seat at the table, set out the juice, cracked open a bag of tiny crackers. Akira would break them into pieces; some kind of food-related trauma, perhaps, but his family was well off. Starving shouldn’t have been an issue. Ms. Kawakami sat heavily in the other chair, the folder spilling from her arms. She flipped it open.

“I’ve kept copies of everything he’s handed in since he transferred,” she said, and Takuto didn’t need to ask who they were talking about: there was only one male transfer student. Akira. She pointed at spots, the writing devolving into gibberish, whole series of what he could only call runes interrupting neat kanji. They took over his composition quizzes, were splattered about his essays, and confused his math equations. Takuto paused on a physics test, on the neat graph and hand-drawn diagram taking up the entire back of the sheet, more runes denoting… something. Something important.

Something important enough that he took a generous hit on his history exam.

“I’ve asked him what’s going on; he always says he’s just… stressed,” she said.

Takuto supposed he was. Being a Phantom Thief had to be very stressful.

“And then he promises not to do it again, or to keep an eye out for it, but then it just happens again. I can’t keep giving him second chances like this! By all rights, he should have failed each and every one of these! Mr. Ushimaru failed him in history!”

Takuto took his time, flipping back through each sheet. It always dissolved toward the end, when any student would be crunched for time, except on the compositions. It looked like whole poems were written out, neat and orderly from the very start. But those were anomalies. “It certainly looks that way,” he said, carefully.

Ms. Kawakami sighed and sagged in her chair. She ran out of steam so quickly. “So. Um. Has he said anything, anything at all, about what might have caused this? I’ve talked to some of the teachers at his old school; he never had a problem like this before. I even emailed them photos. None of them knew what they were looking at.”

“You’re thinking it might have something to do with his arrest, then?”

“His arrest, his move, his—anything. _Anything._ If you know even a little bit about why, maybe I…”

Could continue to feel sorry for him, Takuto guessed. Could keep giving him second chances. If the writing wasn’t done out of malicious intent, she could keep thinking it wasn’t his fault.

Maybe it wasn’t. It was so hard to tell.

But…

“‘He’s not Akira yet,’” Takuto muttered. The angry little boy who sneaked off to use the phone after hours, who had he been calling? No one had told Takuto who it was; he’d only guessed. The boy told him everything else.

That was right: Takuto never asked why the sudden name change, either. There were so many things he hadn’t asked, and so many things he wanted to, but Akira needed work and trust and time.

Takuto was beginning to feel he would never have enough time.

“He’s not?” Ms. Kawakami asked. “He’s been using that name since he got here. I swear half the students don’t even know his real one. He’s tried to turn in homework with it.”

She stopped, her voice wobbling. “He won’t talk, he won’t say a word as to why, and I—I just want to know. So I can help him. You get that, don’t you, Doctor?”

Takuto stared down at the papers spread across his table. Indecipherable writing. A long, wonderful dream. His odd, inexplicable friendship with Goro Akechi.

 _ **THREADS**_ , Azathoth growled, and for once, Takuto agreed.

* * *

Akira had a problem.

He meant to hang out with Yuuki tonight, but one look at the boy in the long-sleeved tee despite the summer’s heat, so focused on his phone it gave him tunnel vision, and Akira’s heart set to pounding.

Which was why Goro was glaring at him over the top of the very large, very ridiculous parfait they were splitting between them. Goro ate like a bird with everything _but_ sweets, Akira was finding, despite his insistence that he hated them.

 _Like Yuuki_ , his brain supplied, and he suppressed a groan of frustration with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.

“I can’t say I’ve ever seen you act like this when you aren’t about to attack me,” Goro said, indulging in a bit of banana. “So. Who are you angry with now?”

This Yuuki wasn’t his Yuuki—and if he was, he wasn’t the exact same one. No one else would ever be the scared teenager Akira married in a long, wonderful dream. But…

“Phan-site admin,” Akira said. He twirled his spoon; Goro watched it carefully, ready to laugh if it slipped from his fingers. “I think… He used to be real earnest. His eyes lit up whenever he talked about his site. It was cute.”

Goro pulled a face. “I had the pleasure of speaking to him about something similar. ‘Cute’ is not the word I would use to describe that expression.”

“Well, yeah. You’re a hater.”

Yuuki could come up with silly puns about the Phantom Thieves on a dime; Akira knew Goro would never forgive him if he dared to try one.

“I am not a hater. The Phantom Thieves are exactly the kind of heroes I used to worship—even if they are vigilantes. If they would work _with_ the law instead of _outside_ it—”

Akira peered over their parfait; Goro caught his eye and stopped with a sigh. He ate delicately, like every eye in the room was on him. Maybe they were. There was an awful lot of chatter.

“I find your taste in lovers to be extremely questionable, you know,” he said, instead of finishing his diatribe. “Although I do suppose he’s exactly your type.”

“My type?”

“Fairly weak. Can’t stand up for himself. Looks like a lot of work— _your_ type. The kind that needs mothering, like he’s a project.”

“I didn’t know I had a type,” Akira muttered to himself, and spooned up more whipped cream.

“Akira, dearest,” Goro said, with a sickly-sweet tone of voice and smile, “you fell for the only person out of hundreds of thousands who got a magic phone app to stick around. If he had any kind of social circle, any kind of extracurricular activity, any kind of interaction with anyone outside of you and that app— _you wouldn’t have fallen for him._ He needed you as much as you needed him. Hence, your type.”

Akira let his spoon dangle from ice cream. His type. He and his Yuuki had spent a lot of time together—more time than Akira felt he spent with anyone else who used the app, though it was hard to be sure. Becoming one with EXA_PICO had turned most of those other lives into muddled memories, like scenes from a nightmare.

Because his Yuuki _had_ been the only one to help him get that far, and Akira had gotten the feeling he _had_ been alone for months. The others had lives and families and friends and work; they didn’t have time for a strange boy trapped in a dream.

Akita took a deep breath and said, “Oh. My type.”

Goro nodded. “Your type. So, why is he frustrating you?”

“Aside from trying to use his site and the Phantom Thieves to enact hits on people he thinks might be kind-of, sort-of fishy? No real reason,” Akira said, gazing out at the street. Parents and children, huge groups of friends and the smaller, more intimate pairs of lovers all passed him by.

“Is he doing that?”

“Yeah,” Akira said. Goro didn’t seem surprised. Akira wasn’t really, either. “He’s been hurt before. You don’t want his sob story and I won’t give it to you, but if you got the kind of power he suddenly has—”

“I’d want to use it, yes,” Goro said.

At least he understood. “It’s changed him. He’s… paranoid, like he thinks he’s going to get jumped just walking down the street. No one knows he’s the site admin; why would they do that?”

_Even if I have to put myself in danger to do it!_

Akira shuddered. He shoved his hands under his chin, trying to warm his fingers up; they felt like ice. Too much parfait, not enough real food. “I… don’t think I can convince him to stop. Every time I try, he finds some way to turn my reasoning back on me. I don’t think it’ll be long before he’s asking the Thieves to take out people just because he doesn’t like them, and that’s not what the Thieves do. That’s not what they stand for. There’s no justice there.”

Goro hummed. He ate more of the parfait as Akira sat there, in turn watching the pedestrians on the street and the rest of the cafe-goers.

After a while, Goro asked, “You aren’t a Phantom Thief, Akira. Why do you care what he tells them to do? Whether they accept his targets or not is up to them, after all.”

“Maybe so, but,” Akira said, but couldn’t find a good way of explaining it. The Thieves needed to become famous, sure, and Yuuki was fired up to get them there. But if all he did was bring them petty revenge targets, eventually the rest of them would stop agreeing to take them on. Makoto especially would be hard-pressed to be the arbiter of Yuuki’s vengeance. She wasn’t a tool to be used as he saw fit, and she would make it known.

“But?” Goro pressed.

Akira muffled a groan. “I just want him to be happy,” he settled on. “Being turned down by your heroes—being spurned, after helping them so much? He won’t take it well.”

“How he feels isn’t quite your business, is it?”

“No, but,” he said, and groaned again. Goro waited expectantly on the other side of the parfait, cheek resting in one gloved hand, spoon dangling from the other. He tapped their parfait glass with it.

“I’m thinking,” Akira nearly snapped at him, and Goro went back to eating.

This Yuuki wasn’t his Yuuki. No one would ever be his Yuuki.

But Akira liked it when this Yuuki’s eyes lit up whenever he talked about the Phantom Thieves or his site. Akira liked it when he answered questions in class and found this Yuuki watching him out of the corner of his eye. Akira liked his proud grin, and the near-blinding determination he put into finding targets, and the way he looked at Akira, sometimes, as if he was searching for praise. He looked so happy when he got some, Akira found it hard not indulge him.

And look where that had gotten them.

“ih=i-fer-eil;” Akira said.

“reth-i;”

“Um,” came Ann’s voice, and Akira snapped his head up to see her and Suzui standing by their table. Suzui’s legs were shaking with strain, and Akira jumped out of his seat and gave it to her.

“Thank you,” she said with a sigh.

“You’re… ready?” Ann asked. “Ready for what?”

“Miss Takamaki,” Goro said, with a blinding smile. “Miss Suzui. Hello to you, too.”

“Yeah, hi, thanks,” Ann said, taking a seat. Akira settled into the last chair and ignored the questioning look she gave him.

“As for me, I actually have to be going now,” Goro said, looking as if he wanted to dump the rest of the parfait in his briefcase and take off with it; he shook it off quickly and gave another smile. “Long nights and all that. No sleep for the wicked, you know?”

“That makes you sound like the bad guy,” Ann shot back, and he laughed with barely a hint of faking it.

If only she knew.

“You’d be surprised, I think, at how many people think so at the moment, Miss Takamaki.”

“I don’t think so,” Suzui said, and it felt as if the whole cafe went quiet just for her. “Having an opinion, that’s not wrong, and it doesn’t make you a bad guy.”

Goro’s expression softened, just for moment, before he smiled again. A bit more real this time, a bit less practiced. “Thank you, Miss Suzui. I appreciate hearing that. As for you, Akira—if you can’t tell him, at least tell your parents. They deserve to know, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” Akira said, because Goro found ways to cut straight to what he wanted to hear the least.

He waved as Goro gave his goodbyes and exited the cafe, and then it was Ann’s turn to stare at him over the melting, dripping parfait. Akira took an extra-large spoonful this time.

“So, uh, do I wanna know?” Ann asked as Suzui asked a passing waitress for some extra spoons. The waitress asked if she wanted them to be plastic, too.

“Maybe,” Akira said. He tugged at his hair. “But first, what are you two doing here? I thought—”

“Shiho got the okay for a day out,” Ann informed him, still staring. “When we came here, we found you guys. I’m not surprised; it’s been getting rave reviews lately. It was only a matter of time before the Detective Prince wanted to try it. So? What’s going on?”

Akira looked to Suzui, who gave him a small smile and continued massaging her thighs under the table. “I don’t want to intrude on your day out,” he said.

Suzui laughed. “Just seeing Ann all the time really wears me out”—Ann protested, and pouted— “so it’s nice to talk to someone else for a change. How’s school? Is everyone treating you any better?”

Ann let them chitchat for a while, and between the three of them the rest of the parfait didn’t last much longer. Interest in the table waned when Goro left, and Akira found a lot less eyes trained on them the longer they sat there; people came and went, sighing in the air conditioning and exclaiming over their sundaes and parfaits and cold blocks of _yokan_.

Akira wondered if Yuuki had a sweet tooth. He wondered if he would like mille-feuille.

“Well,” he began, tugging again at his hair and watching Ann’s face light up, “there _is_ something I’d like to tell you.”

He wondered if it was going to be this hard to tell his parents. He told them Before, when they couldn’t say anything back, when he didn’t have to watch their faces, and it had been easy—but they deserved to hear it from him in person, not over the phone or by text, and it was hard, watching Ann’s excitement.

How did he tell his friends Before? Had he been looking at them? He couldn’t remember. He almost didn’t want to.

“I, uh…” he began again, and trailed off as the door to the cafe swung open and shut with a cheery jingle. The waitresses gave goodbyes and said farewells, their dangling sleeves fluttering; Goro liked the blend of Eastern kimono and Western maid in their outfits. He said it suited the theme.

For once, his mind was quiet, his Personas giving him space to think. It was too quiet. He didn’t know when he got used to the chatter and the commentary, but he did—

Suzui’s hand on his knee stopped his thoughts in his tracks. She gave him that same smile, small and encouraging, if a little pained, and Akira swallowed past the lump in his throat.

No matter where or who he was, this wouldn’t change: he didn’t want anyone in his life who couldn’t accept him as he was. If they didn’t like who he chose to love, he didn’t need them.

His friends were always sharing bits and pieces of themselves with him. He needed to do the same.

Akira reached across the table, searching for Ann’s hand; her grip was firm, stable, just as encouraging as Suzui’s smile. He said, “I’m bi.”

“Okay,” Ann said.

“And—there’s a boy I like.”

That made her gaze dart over to Goro’s empty seat in a brief moment of panic.

“It’s not Goro.”

“Oh, geez.” She sighed, like he’d dodged a bullet. He wanted to argue, but between Goro’s past genocides and the pancakes comment, maybe she was right. “So, uh, can I ask who it is?”

Before, Akira had made his friends worry and wonder for months before saying anything. He didn’t want to do that anymore. “It’s Yuuki. Mishima, from the volleyball team,” he added, for Suzui’s sake.

“Mishima?” Suzui asked, with surprise.

Ann only squinted, like she didn’t quite get it, but squeezed his hand and gave him a bright grin. “You’ll have to tell me all about it sometime! We can have a—a girl’s night!”

“Ann,” Suzui laughed, “he’s a boy.”

“Doesn’t matter! We’ll have a girl’s night! We’ll watch awful romance movies and eat way too much ice cream and talk—” Her voice broke. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes; her grip on his hand went tight and crushing. Finally, she said, “And we’ll talk about the boys we like. Sound good?”

How could she say things like that after telling him she wasn’t strong?

And how could he possibly say no?

“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds good.”

She dabbed at her tears; they paid halves on the parfait, since Goro hadn’t bothered to leave any change and Suzui didn’t have any money. When they parted ways at the station, Suzui gave him a long hug goodbye and murmured something too soft to understand in his ear.

He thought he knew what she said, anyway.

Boss was just closing up when Akira returned. Morgana flicked an ear in his direction from his bed on a booth seat, but only rolled over and grumbled.

Maybe Goro was right. Maybe he should tell his parents, even if it wasn’t in person.

But he dithered, making a lunch for tomorrow and reheating a small plate of curry. His phone buzzed; Yusuke wanted to stop by the next day, so Akira made a lunch for him, too.

He didn’t know what to do about Yuuki. Pushing him to stop might only make everything worse, but going along with it was _definitely_ going to make things worse. Akira didn’t want either. He wanted things to go back to the way they’d been in the beginning, back when Yuuki was all shy smiles and proud grins—but this was a part of Yuuki, too. Akira couldn’t ignore it. It wouldn’t be fair to him.

Yuuki— _his_ Yuuki—had seen everything and accepted it. Akira needed to do the same.

He sighed, tugging a hand through his hair, combing out knots and tangles just for something to do. With his other hand he thumbed his phone, still safe in his pocket. He could call Ann, ask her why she’d been ready to cry in the middle of the cafe. He could call Yusuke, make definitive plans for tomorrow. Hell, he could call Futaba; she was probably awake and more than happy to talk his ear off.

“Stop stalling,” he told himself, then again and again and again—and then he was dialing his parents, because Goro was right: they should know. Putting it off because he wanted to tell them face-to-face was just stalling, like making two pairs of lunches and cleaning the stove.

The phone rang and rang. It was late; he should be asleep, like Morgana. Like his parents probably were.

But Goro was right, and Akira was ready to do this _now_.

“Amamiya residence,” his dad said, when he finally picked up.

Akira settled onto a bar stool. Outside, a pair of drunks stumbled by, their faces rosy with heat and drink. “Hey, Dad.”

“Ren,” and a bunch of mumbling. “I’m putting you on speaker. Your mom’s here, too.”

“Hello, Ren,” she said.

He was going to be sick. There was a nauseous bubble ready to burst in his stomach. It tasted like green tea ice cream and curry. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No, dear! Not at all! We were watching a movie, although I can’t tell you a single thing that’s going on.”

“Your mother does not understand science fiction, Ren.”

He laughed; his mom pouted audibly. Morgana stretched and rolled over once more with a tiny kitty groan. He said, “It’s easier if you think of it as fantasy with science mixed in, you know?”

“I do that!” his mom whined. “But then they start talking about wormholes, and nuclear fission—”

“Fusion,” his dad corrected.

“—and a bunch of other things I know _are_ real, and it ruins everything!”

“I guess you don’t like action movies much, either,” Akira guessed.

“They fight on top of _buses_ , Ren! It’s absurd!”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d watched a movie, but that sounded right.

“Before we pick apart your mother’s taste in movies any more, did you need something, Ren? It’s awfully late,” his dad said, and although his mom complained, she didn’t argue. “If you’re asking whether you woke us up, shouldn’t you be asleep too?”

Morgana, happily snoozing, his claws catching at the faux-leather with sticky noises. Akira should be upstairs, in bed, listening to the wind chime he’d bought on a whim _ding_ in the occasional breeze like the intermittent sigh of a door sliding open on board the Soreil.

“I just wanted to tell you something, that’s all,” he said.

“Oh?” his mother asked. “Did something happen, dear?”

“Nothing important.” Because if she got wind of half of anything Akira was dealing with—the shady clinical trials, part-timing at an airsoft shop and an _okama_ bar, his leaked records, Phantom Thievery—she would come down with a fury. He was sure of it. “I’ve made more friends here than I think I’ve ever had, actually. I wish you could meet them.”

“I wish we could, too, dear,” she said.

He could do this. He could. He talked back to a god; he Sang a whole planet back into being. Telling them should be easy in comparison. “And, I, uh. Might like one of them.”

“Like one of them?” his dad asked.

“ _Like_ like one of them?” his mom asked, sounding eager.

All at once, the things his Yuuki told him came rushing back: _she hates me; she hates us; she can’t stand the thought of it at all. I love you so much but she can’t stand it. It’s not fair, Akira._

“Please don’t be mad,” he said, although if they were at least he wasn’t there. At least his mom couldn’t hit him, too. He could always hang up if she screamed.

Or he could puke. He could do that, too.

“Why would we get angry, Ren?”

“Because the friend I like is a boy. I’m bi. And that’s weird.”

Silence, for a long time. He waited for the blow-up: for his mom to start screaming, or crying, begging that it couldn’t be true; for his dad to growl denial and bark at him to stop playing pranks.

“Bi?” his mom asked, in a whisper. “That’s—that’s the one where you like both, right?”

His dad grunted, barely audible.

“Um, Ren? Is it?”

He really was going to puke. He managed to say, “Yeah, it is. I—”

 _I’m sorry_ , he was going to say, but that wasn’t true. He wasn’t sorry. He would never be sorry for loving Yuuki. Weren’t these the people he’d sworn to disown if they couldn’t stand it, Before? Weren’t these the ones he’d told he would marry Yuuki, with or without their blessing?

(They weren’t, but. But—)

“I just—” he said, and his voice broke. His stomach roiled. He tasted acid; his fingers were numb around his phone. “ih=i-fer-eil; i-fer-eil-ef; ih=i-fer-eil agu-vy-ela—”

“Calm down, dear,” his mom said. “Take deep breaths with me, okay?”

It was his turn to grunt, but he followed along until the acid burn in his throat was mostly gone and the bright sparks dancing in his vision disappeared. He wondered how late it was; Leblanc didn’t have a clock, digital or otherwise. Boss relied on the evening news to know when to close for the night.

“You really like this boy, don’t you, Ren?” she asked.

He nodded, remembered he was on the phone, croaked out, “Yeah. I do.”

“I see.” She paused. “I see. I, um.”

Akira closed his eyes. She was going to say it, she was going to rip him to pieces but do it gently, softly—

“I, oh—” She sniffed. “My little boy. My little baby boy. He’s in love, Papa, did you hear that?”

“I did,” his dad said, “though not in so many words, Mama.”

“Like, love—it doesn’t matter,” she said, and sniffed again. “I never thought—never, ever—that you’d grow up so much, Ren. I thought you’d never find someone to be happy with—”

“Not that you can’t be happy alone,” his dad interrupted. “There are people out there like that, Mama, remember?”

“Oh, hush.” A _baff_ as her hand slapped his arm; Akira huffed a laugh. Always the same, his parents. He wondered what went wrong Before. Maybe it had just been stress. “All I mean is that it’s—hard, going through life alone, and I thought you would be for a long time, Ren. That’s all.”

“More wisdom from Miss Emiko?” he asked.

A pause. A shaky breath. “Yes, dear. Although I still can’t remember where I met her, or where she went.”

“Maybe you met her in a dream.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Now, it’s late, and we’ve got to be proper parents! Off to bed with you, young man!”

He laughed, sliding off his stool. “Alright, alright.”

“And, Ren?”

“Yeah?”

“We love you, dear. That won’t change.”

For a second, he wasn’t so sure, but these really weren’t the same people who’d made him feel like a prisoner inside his own house, like a burden they were struggling to cast off. The words that had been slung at him that night still rang in his head, as cutting as ever.

But even back then, even when he felt like shit oozing through the cracks of that house, even when he packed his bag in a panicked hurry, he still loved them, still craved some measure of their attention, still wanted their approval. He’d done the right thing, he was sure, and all he wanted was someone to say so.

Now, everyone was saying so.

“I, um,” Akira said, watching Morgana’s tail flick in his kitty dreams. “I love you, too.”

When he hung up he felt empty. His stomach still burned and his throat still ached but the cause had been uprooted all at once, leaving him with nothing but the taste of acid and green tea and curry, and the sheer relief of love.

(The Amamiyas settled back into their couch with a sigh, movie forgotten on the screen before them. Mrs. Amamiya placed a thumb at her temple and pressed, hoping to stave off the next sharp spike of a promising migraine. “Emiko,” she mused.

Her husband took her hand, wound his other arm around her shoulders. “You don’t need to think about it if it hurts you so much.”

“But it’s important.” She was sure of it. Emiko, and the boy Ren loved, and Mr. Sakura, who had been kind enough to take him in. She knew them, somehow.

She’d never met them in her life, but she knew them.

“Maybe I’m sick,” she ventured.

“Mama,” he said, tired of the argument.

“Stress can make you sick, dear.”

He hummed, like he always did, because while he didn’t like the thought of his wife being so sick it gave her migraines and memories of people she’d never met before, even he knew it was the only explanation.

But then he said, “Well. Maybe I’m sick with stress, too, then.”

“You are?”

“I planted those bushes in front of the house last week. Never told you it was because I was sure someone was watching us. But why would they? There’s no reason to. Ren’s all the way in Tokyo.”

And he said, “And sometimes, when I’m driving through town, I think I see posters on the walls and fences. Pictures of Ren and that boy on TV, everywhere. But then I blink and they’re gone.”

And he said, “And sometimes I think of Ren and think of Akira, too.”

“Akira?”

“I don’t know why, but it seems to fit him better. Akira. As if he chose it for himself.”

“Oh,” she said, tasting the word on her tongue. “Akira, hm? Akira.”

He pulled her closer. She thought of Akira, and Emiko, and a little boy who looked like that detective on TV. She thought of posters, and Ren’s room kept exactly like it was, like a shrine. She thought of a boy sitting on her couch and crying because he loved Akira but wasn’t good enough to bring him home.

She closed her eyes against the pulses of pain shooting through her head. Things that happened; things that didn’t happen; things that only happened in a dream, like Ren said.

She said, “It’s a nice name. Akira. Why didn’t we think of it?”

Her husband didn’t answer. It was obvious: he wasn’t Akira yet. He had to be Ren first.

Then she thought of a little boy calling her house and asking for Akira, and in the space between waking and dreaming, wondered if he knew.)

* * *

“Yuuki,” Amamiya said, and Yuuki glanced up from his phone long enough to see his brows pulled together, the frown on his lips. “Have you been sleeping?”

Of course not. Between Medjed and Igarashi, Yuuki didn’t want to, but that wasn’t Amamiya’s business. He said, “You know how busy the site’s been lately. I’m the sole admin. I gotta make sure nobody’s posting flames about us.”

With a start, he realized that he could actually see Amamiya’s face. It wasn’t hiding behind the glare of light off his glasses, wasn’t carefully arranged into blank interest. Maybe it was Yuuki’s imagination, but he really did look concerned.

He tried not to pull a face. _Now_ he cared? Really?

“That may be so, but I’d like it if you slept at least a little,” Amamiya said, and Yuuki fought down the urge to huff. Amamiya wasn’t his mother. He had no right to act like this.

“Okay, geez,” he said, and if it came out a little too sharp, a little too annoyed, Amamiya didn’t say so. “I, uh, actually wanted to talk to you. About that actor from before. I got some new info earlier; I was just about to send it to you.”

Amamiya only nodded. They were quiet as they left Shinjuku and the heat of the streets to head for the diner in Shibuya; Yuuki liked it there, if only for the free refills on drinks. He deserved something nice after all the work he was putting in, and whatever the hell had come over his dad didn’t count.

Amamiya let him explain that the actor from before was getting married to that idol he seduced. Yuuki still wasn’t sure it wasn’t some kind of scheme, but the idol looked happy, and the actor looked genuinely lovestruck when they shared the good news, both of them beaming at the cameras, his eyes never leaving her for long.

Yuuki left out the part where he’d slammed his laptop shut in a fit of jealousy, because the only person who seemed to want him was goddamn Igarashi and his creepy leers.

“And as far as I can tell, you guys never took his heart, so I guess it’s a good thing,” Yuuki said. “We wouldn’t want the backlash after all this success. I’ve… kind of been busy fielding off all those flames, but it’s getting harder and harder. For every new believer, there’s another hater.”

Like his mother. And yet, despite that doubt, there had been a trace of fear in her eyes after what Takaoka told her. All that bluster just to cover up her own guilt, because she knew she was a worthy target after what she’d done to Yuuki.

He could still taste the smoke, could still feel the sharp sting of nails digging into his arms. There were still traces of burns on his chin, ash smeared into his shirt. He couldn’t ask for a new one, not yet.

“So, I thought, why not just purge them?”

That made Amamiya’s head snap up. “Purge them?”

“Not literally,” Yuuki assured him. “Just, you know, warn them. ‘If you don’t change your ways, you’ll be next!’ and stuff. It’s been working pretty well so far.”

“ _So_ _far?_ ”

“Uh, yeah?” Yuuki sipped his drink. It tasted like smoke. “If you don’t threaten them a little, they’ll just keep at it. The only reason I’ve been getting any sleep at all is because of it, otherwise it would just be all-nighters, all the time. I’d never stop working.”

And didn’t Amamiya just say he needed to sleep more?

“Yuuki,” Amamiya said, but Yuuki shook his head. He knew that tone. It sounded like his mother’s.

“It’s been working,” he said, sharply. “It just means that they know that we’re dangerous, that we can go after whoever we want. And, you know, the less flames I have to deal with, the more praise we get. Tons of posts saying ‘help me’ and ‘save me’ and so much info I’m practically swimming in it. It’s so much better compared to before. It all comes right to me; I barely have to do anything. It’s… kind of fun.”

Being wanted. Being needed. Having people run to him because they knew he could fix their problems. Being bombarded with messages on the forum, so many he had to pick and choose who to answer and who to leave on read. Being something other than the punchline of a joke.

Being someone.

Not that Amamiya would understand.

“Something happened, didn’t it?” Amamiya asked.

“If by ‘something’ you mean I found my own way to change hearts, then yeah, something _did_ happen.” Not that Amamiya needed to know that it was Takaoka who proved it worked. “If this gets the common criminals to change their ways before they become serious problems, what’s the big deal? The Phantom Thieves’ll have bigger fish to fry sooner or later; they won’t have the time to take on everyone. I’m _helping_ you. This is my strength.”

Amamiya looked ready to argue. What the hell was his deal? Did he really want to personally take down every shoplifter, bully, and mugger in the city?

Movement out of the corner of his eye—Akiyama, eyes downcast, finding more interest in the floorboards than in Yuuki, even as he stopped in front of their table. His friends were noticeably absent; Yuuki almost sighed with relief. “Oh, it’s Mishima,” Akiyama said, without a trace of that fire from before. “Haven’t seen you since graduation.”

He laughed. _Poor little Mishima, always laughing along._ “You, um, said that last time.”

“Did I?” Akiyama said, staring off into space, as if trying to remember. He was quiet for so long Yuuki didn’t know what to think; where was the boisterous bully he remembered?

And, well. He might have been Yuuki’s bully, but Yuuki had wanted him to be his friend. Goddamn Igarashi just had to remind him of that. “Did something happen, Akiyama?”

“Somethin’…?” He pulled a face, though it lacked any real venom. “Hell no. And I don’t need some nobody like you worryin’ about me, got it?”

“Sorry,” Yuuki said, on reflex. “It’s just, you seem kind of quiet. Not like before.”

“So I gotta be a noisy bastard all the time, huh?”

“That’s, uh, not what I meant.”

Amamiya shifted in his seat. His glasses had slipped down his nose sometime while they were talking, and he hadn’t bothered to push them back up, so Yuuki got a full view of the contemplative glare he was giving Akiyama. It would have felt good, before, to know Amamiya was on his side.

Now it just made Yuuki feel weak. Defenseless. Like he wasn’t perfectly capable of defending himself.

(He wasn’t. His wrists still ached from Igarashi’s grip. His shirt sleeves barely covered the bruises. Against someone like Igarashi, or Akiyama, or Kamoshida, Yuuki’s strength was nothing.)

Akiyama clicked his tongue. “I don’t need some nobody worryin’ about me. You can keep all that sentimental shit to yourself,” he snapped, and stalked off.

Yuuki wound up staring after him long after he left the diner. He thought he recognized that slouch to his shoulders, the way his feet dragged across the floor, every bone and muscle in his body screaming _no more_. Defeat weighed on him as heavily as it did Yuuki; but that was ridiculous. Akiyama was unbeatable. He was above that kind of thing.

Yuuki turned back to the table. He muttered, “Nobody, huh.”

Amamiya said nothing.

“I’m not a nobody,” Yuuki said. He wished Amamiya would have. He wondered if it would have meant anything. “He’s probably the same as always: hanging out with shady people, doing all sorts of questionable business, finally getting his own ass handed to him. It’s what he deserves.”

It was what they all deserved. And if Amamiya wanted to go after every shoplifter, bully, and mugger personally, then… “Hey, I know! Why don’t you go after Akiyama instead? Once he has a change of heart, he’s bound to give us more targets!”

Amamiya said nothing. The damn glare was back, bouncing off his lenses until he was as aloof as ever. Rage curled in Yuuki’s gut.

He laughed through it. “I’ll get you his info later,” he promised.

Amamiya said nothing.

 _Don’t look at me like that!_ Yuuki wanted to snap. Amamiya wanted targets, _needed_ targets, and Yuuki was getting them for him, wasn’t he? He was doing his best, wasn’t he?

… Was Amamiya going to say anything at all?

Yuuki couldn’t look at him anymore. He looked at his drink, still mostly full. There was smoke in his mouth, in his lungs, in his blood. He was insubstantial. He was weak.

… No, he was strong. Wasn’t he?

And when he was stronger…

“You’ll have to come after me someday, won’t you?”

But Amamiya said nothing. Yuuki left him at the table.

* * *

Goro picked up his phone, arms aching with exertion. His first free day in ages—his first time back at the bouldering club in months—and he had to get a phone call. It wasn’t a number he recognized.

“Akechi speaking.”

“Akechi,” said the man on the other end. He sounded familiar. “This is Ikami, your case worker.”

Ah, that was right: he’d gotten a new one after the unfortunate mental breakdown of his old case worker. Pity, that. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mister Ikami. I didn’t realize it was check-in already—”

“Ah, no, that’s not it.”

He sat. Took a swig from his water bottle. Tried to ignore the stares as he wiped sweat from his face and arms. “Then, what’s the occasion?”

The man sighed. “I, ah, don’t suppose you remember a Doctor Takuto Maruki?”

“Maruki? It sounds familiar, but no, I don’t.”

“Should I let you think on it?”

Goro hummed. The plastic chairs at the club really weren’t meant for comfort, but he leaned back, crossed his legs at the knee. Maruki, Maruki… He thought a Doctor Maruki was the substitute witness at Shujin. Several of the students had wanted him there, though Goro tried not to pay attention to him. It was the lab coat. He hated lab coats; all he’d gotten was a vague impression of a young, handsome man. He’d stayed relatively quiet throughout their sessions, but gotten profuse thanks for being there regardless.

But Ikami wouldn’t know that.

“Did I meet him at a health screening?” Goro asked.

“You might have,” Ikami said.

“I might have? You don’t know, Mister Ikami?”

“Whoever had your case last was a real piece of work,” the man growled. “Can’t make heads or tails of this mess. They’ve got photocopies of all these scribbles everywhere.” He sighed.

Goro resisted the urge to do the same. “I’d be happy to help you sort through it all,” he offered, if only he could burn it after.

If they were what he thought they were… No one deserved to have those. No one.

“I’ll get through it eventually. Anyway, Doctor Maruki insisted to me he was a counselor in training when he was assigned to your case for a while. He said something about a series of psychotic incidents? Does that ring a bell?”

It did, though he still couldn’t remember the man himself. “It might.”

Ikami snorted. “At least you remember. Can you guess why he’s contacting me, then?”

“He wants a follow-up,” Goro guessed.

“He does.”

Goro did sigh then. The mistakes of his youth—the stupidity of his younger self, even with five-thousand years of knowledge behind him—still surprised him. At least Miss Mako had stopped sending him letters after a while, even if it did make him feel lonely.

“I know,” Ikami said. “I told him you’re very busy, and that your current counselor hasn’t made note of anything too disturbing, but he insisted. It’s up to you.”

“Is it, now,” Goro said. The lights in the club were dazzling, blinding. Like the sun, or the stars; he tried to sink himself into Bezel, once, thinking it might eradicate what was left of him, leave him with something more than the aching, howling void that was his soul. It didn’t. “Then, no, I’m afraid. I really am very busy. But I am glad he’s still thinking of me. I know I wasn’t exactly… the best child, back then.”

“Hard to believe that now, isn’t it?”

Not so hard. Goro ripped Shadows to shreds with his bare hands. He shot them, sliced them open, tore them limb from limb, watched black ichor trail down their bodies like blood as their eyes widened with fear. They begged for their lives by the end of it.

But, like those long-ago scientists, Goro showed them no mercy. They were the scum of the earth, gorging themselves on the exploits of the weak and thinking themselves superior for it.

What Goro wouldn’t have given, to watch those damned scientists burn to something less than even ash, to hear them scream in agony and beg for his forgiveness.

He laughed, perfectly demure, perfectly respectful. “It is, isn’t it? But, as they say, boys will be boys, won’t they? And I’ve certainly seen worse in the years after. Let’s call it a miracle I turned out this way, hm?”

Ikami snorted again. It was all the comment Goro needed.

He left Ikami to his mess, hung up, contemplated spending the rest of his free day enjoying a good workout. A healthy workout. One that didn’t involve shooting or stabbing or killing something.

It didn’t work.

Whoever this Doctor Maruki was, he didn’t deserve to know a thing about Goro or his past—and if he was the same Maruki at Shujin, he didn’t deserve to heckle Akira for the details, either. Goro packed up his things, rinsed off as quickly as he could, and found himself within the depths of Mementos before long, the veins along the walls pulsing to some unknown heartbeat.

He spared a quick glance to the Velvet Room, door still locked and wrapped in chains as thick as his arms, then switched his attention to his phone and the waiting app.

Everyone had a Shadow, and every Shadow within Tokyo was housed in Mementos—save for people like Madarame and Kaneshiro, whose egos grew too big to be contained, and people like Goro, who resolved to fight against them, whatever it took.

(Akira’s wasn’t in here. Sometimes Goro wondered which category he fell under, but it was obvious. Akira couldn’t stand the injustices of the world, either.)

The app informed him of a new area, and of several problematic Shadows who had clawed their way into their own little bubbles— **Niijima** , he read with a start, and suppressed disappointment; Shido’s plan was working just as well as he’d hoped—and others that had moved around, coming closer to the surface or diving deeper into the depths.

He never thought much about it. He went in, he checked for one or two targets, killed them or drove them insane, and left. Sometimes he plied them for information. They were always so happy to run their mouths.

But. Maruki. He was here to find Maruki. If the man was anywhere, he had to be here.

If Goro was right, his full name was… “Takuto Maruki.”

“Candidate not found,” the app informed him.

“Bullshit,” he growled at it. If the man was so obsessed over ten-year-old Goro’s psychiatric evaluation that he came calling eight years later, he had to be here. “Takuto Maruki.”

“Candidate not found,” was the response.

He growled, started pacing. Maruki had to be here. There was no way the man was special, like Goro and Akira were. There was no way he was blessed with the power to fight back against injustice. He was a high school counselor, for fuck’s sake. He was a _nobody_.

Goro kicked at the veins crawling around the floor; his boots, with their sharp edges, tore straight through. Ichor poured out, coating the floor, his boots, the bottoms of his suit. It splashed its way up to his knees, gleaming against the walls, where it clung thick and heavy as molasses. He tore at a clump of veins clustered together, claws shredding, flesh rending—

He paused. Tilted his head, looked a bit closer at the veins on the wall. He brushed away dirt and detritus and the scraps of a paper notice, all covered in thick, goopy ichor, and found a cable jumbled in with the rest. It was heavy. Metallic. Made a nice scraping sound as he ran a claw along it, searching for a seam.

A cable. In Mementos.

(Goro, ten years old, his hair shaggy despite the regulation cut. The table was faux-wood and scratched with dozens upon hundreds of nicks from dozens upon hundreds of kids just like him: lonely, unwanted, unloved.

Sitting across from him, smiling sheepishly: Takuto Maruki. The headmistress had called him doctor when she sat him down, but Maruki said Goro could call him whatever he wanted. He wasn’t a doctor yet.

In between them: pages photocopied from Goro’s journal, every angry ranting and scribbled death wish on display; the Chunpi doll, half its head ripped off, the scarf hanging on for dear life; Mama’s bone, covered in crusted blood; Feather Red, smeared with mud and grass stains.

Maruki barely glanced at it all. He looked only at Goro.

Goro was too busy looking at the rip in the doll to care. He sniffed.

It was a mistake.

“Things can be fixed, Akechi,” Maruki said.

That was true, but the only person he trusted to fix the doll was Akira, and Akira wasn’t here.

“I’m not here to tell you you’re wrong for being angry,” the man went on. “These things are precious to you. They have meaning, and someone tried to take them. It’s understandable that you’d want to keep what was yours. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to share.”

Goro waited for the inevitable _but everyone here has lost just as much; you need to think about them, too; don’t be so selfish, so bratty, so childish._

“So, why don’t you tell me about them?”

“That’s not going to help,” Goro said.

“It might not help your things,” said the man, “and it might not help the others understand you right now, but it will be a start. If you can share with me, maybe you can share with others, later.”

“I don’t need friends,” Goro spat.

“It’s hard to go through life alone, Akechi.”

“I don’t need friends,” he repeated, sharper. No one understood. No one would ever understand. No one except— “I only need Akira.”

“Akira?”

Goro pressed his lips together. Stupid mouth, stupid brain—why not just barf it all up onto the table for Maruki to enjoy?

“Is Akira a friend of yours?”

 _Shut up,_ Goro thought. _Stop talking._

“If you could see him, would that help you?”

_Shut up, shut up—_

“Where is Akira?” Maruki asked.

“He’s not here,” said Goro, just to get him to stop talking.

“If he’s not here,” Maruki asked, pressing, hoping, “then where is he?”

Was he stupid? Could he not hear? Did he not want to? “Not. Here.”

Maruki sighed, leaned back, shoved his glasses higher on his nose. He pretended to stare out the window at Goro’s back and asked, “Then, perhaps this boy you’ve been calling knows?”

That was it. Goro was done with this, all of it. It was one thing if he caused trouble, but he couldn’t cause trouble for Ren. For Akira. “Don’t bring Ren into this! He’s not Akira yet—”)

“You goddamn bastard,” Goro said, taking hold of the cable. He dug his claws in and yanked on it; it gave him a few good inches before snapping taut, as if caught.

Akira went to Shujin, and Maruki just happened to be a counselor there? How did he know about Ren’s arrest? How did he know about the transfer? He had to know something; Goro refused to believe in coincidences like this. Akira was at Maruki’s mercy. Akira could be telling him anything, just like those babbling students.

Goro seethed. Akira wouldn’t. Akira couldn’t.

But he might. He was always weak when it came to his friends; he would talk if it meant helping Goro. Was that what they were doing? Talking about him? Gossiping like schoolkids on the playground, just waiting for Goro to overhear?

 _ **He wouldn’t**_ , Robin Hood assured.

 _ **He might**_ , Loki hissed, with a snap of teeth.

“It’s my fault,” Goro muttered, still yanking. “ _My_ fault. _Mine_. I’ve been letting shit slip for years. It was only a matter of time before someone put the pieces together.”

Maruki wanted to meet him. He had Akira in his clutches; now he only needed Goro.

Goro wasn’t going to give himself up, not even if Akira asked him to. He was in too deep for a damn counselor to help him, now, and with Shido’s temper said counselor would meet a swift and unfortunate end. Better to stay away, for all their sakes.

… Yes. Better.


	12. The Moon, Rank --, Part Two

Akira had two problems.

One: he liked this Yuuki.

Two: this Yuuki was, apparently, on his way to becoming a target of the Phantom Thieves.

Makoto made her way up the stairs, the last to arrive; the others greeted her from their spots around the table. “I’m so sorry,” she said, brushing hair out of her face. “Sis came home early, and I was trying to think of a way out for the longest time—”

“It’s cool,” Ryuji said, setting his chair down on all fours with a thunk.

It really wasn’t.

Ann, at least, knew it wasn’t. Akira’s face when she came up the stairs told her everything; the fact that he hadn’t been able to get a single word out so far said it was far more serious than he was letting on. She looked at him with sympathy; he shut his eyes to it.

“Well, we’re all here!” chirped Futaba. “So, what’s the sitch?”

Ann crinkled her nose. “Wow. I haven’t heard that in forever.”

“I don’t believe now is the time for levity,” Yusuke interrupted, before Futaba could make a comeback.

Akira felt it when they all turned his way. Six pairs of eyes or six hundred or six hundred thousand—they were all the same. The weight carried the same intensity. They burned with the same fire.

“It’s Yuuki—Mishima,” he said. They shifted in their seats: Futaba, vibrating with excitement; Ryuji, his dog tag necklace clinking as he shifted his gaze to the table; Makoto, tucking more hair behind an ear; Morgana, on the table, his tail swishing.

Yusuke asked, “The—Phan-site admin, yes? Is something the matter?”

“Yeah,” Ann said. “I haven’t talked to him recently, but when I did, he seemed okay.”

“I don’t think he is,” Akira said.

Thump, thump, went Morgana’s tail.

“What makes you say so?” Makoto asked.

Akira sighed. The Yuuki of two or three months ago wouldn’t have suggested going after Akiyama’s heart. Not that Akiyama, not the one they saw in the diner, defeated and weak. That Yuuki would have seen himself in him. That Yuuki would have suggested finding out who was bothering him so much and going after them instead.

Not… this. Like he had something to prove, or like he had something he wanted Akira to prove. Akira didn’t understand it. It was his thoughts, locked away inside his head, without any way of reaching the light of day.

“He has kinda been actin’ different,” Ryuji said, taking over. “Talkin’ more about the Phantom Thieves, or about the site. It’s—he used to talk about all sorts of different stuff, but now it’s just that.”

“Says the guy who complains whenever he butts into a conversation,” Ann shot over the table.

“Dude, I know he’s awkward as shit,” Ryuji said. “ _He_ knows he’s awkward as shit. But it’s different now. I dunno what it is, but somethin’s just… different. Like he’s got somethin’ to prove.”

“Prove to who?”

“Everyone,” Akira stated, and felt their gazes shift back. “He’s been doing this for us. He hasn’t asked for anything in return; he hasn’t asked for anything at all, except my time. I think, in his head, he’s a part of us. But since he can’t enter the Metaverse and actually fight, he’s trying to prove that even the Phan-site admin has clout. To everyone. In the whole city.”

“But… what good would that do him?” Futaba asked. “He’d just wind up getting doxxed. Game Over. Do Not Restart.”

“One would think the police wouldn’t take kindly to such statements, either,” Yusuke said.

Makoto placed her phone on the table, scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. “I agree,” she finally said. “Sis would have a field day with this kind of evidence. It doesn’t matter that he’s not actually a Phantom Thief; he’s making threats all across the site.”

Ones that Akira saw and shut his eyes to the night before. Whatever was going on, only Yuuki understood it.

If only Akira could see into his heart—see the inner workings of his mind, played out before him like a bad TV drama, help him work through it all instead of sitting on his ass twiddling his thumbs, waiting for everything to get better…

Thump, thump, went Morgana’s tail.

“So, uh, that’s bad, right?” Ryuji asked.

“You can’t just threaten people, Ryuji!” Ann chided.

“Well… I mean, technically, you can. Nobody believes anything on the ‘net, much less ‘Hey everybody, I’m a Phantom Thief!’ these days,” Futaba said, shifting on her toes.

“It’d be one thing if it was someone random,” Makoto said, still scrolling. “But this is a Shujin student, who was directly involved with the Kamoshida incident, and who has posted ‘We will steal your heart’ on the site multiple times and had it come true.”

“…Okay, I take it back.”

A pause. Akira’s stomach swirled. Whatever was going on, Yuuki didn’t deserve to go to jail just for being complicit in a few changes of heart. He needed help.

He needed it _now_.

“You’ve been quiet, Morgana,” Yusuke said. “What do you think?”

“I…” Morgana started, but trailed off.

“You?” Ryuji pressed anyway.

“I—I can’t say! Gentleman’s honor!”

“Morgana,” Makoto said, “if you have information you aren’t telling us—”

“I—I swore an oath!”

“To Yuuki?” Akira asked, finally daring to open his eyes. The room was so bright, but Morgana’s eyes were brighter, and they wavered as they met his.

The cat shook his head. “I—I swore not to tell.”

“To Yuuki?”

“N-no, but—”

“Then what happened?” Ryuji almost shouted. “If you know, you should say somethin’, you stupid cat!”

“I’m not a cat!” Morgana yowled. “And I promised not to say a word!”

“Morgana, please,” Ann said. “If it’s important, we need to know!”

The cat made a noise. He didn’t want to answer; he’d made a promise not to. But after a while, he said, “At the park. When—when Akira and Mishima went there to talk about some actor he wanted us to target. I-I wandered too far and got lost, and.” He paused. Thought for a while. “I tried following the paths back to the entrance, but I wound up by the fountain instead. Mishima was there, going into the bathroom. I was going to see if he needed an escort out of the park, but then these guys came around the back. They smelled awful, and they were all big brutes. They were laughing at something I didn’t hear.”

Ryuji grit his teeth with a grunt.

“And I thought, _They’ll leave; the park’s closing soon._ But they… they just stood there, in front of the bathroom. Waiting for Mishima to come out. And I just… sat there, once he did. I don’t know what they talked about, but a couple of them did something weird and then the big guys all left, and the one who stayed behind started messing with him.”

“With Mishima?” Makoto asked, just to be sure.

Morgana nodded. “They talked some more. The guy dug through his stuff. I thought Mishima would have run off by then, but he didn’t. I don’t know why.”

Futaba pulled a face and hugged her knees.

“I was getting closer by then, but I still couldn’t hear what they were saying, and then the guy was doing something weird with Mishima, too. He couldn’t breathe, or move, or anything—”

“Who?” Akira asked. The room went as silent as a tomb; he could hear the TV downstairs, droning on and on.

Morgana’s ears folded back; he sank closer to the table. “I…”

“Who?”

Akira barely realized he was out of his chair, looming over the cat curled on his corner. Morgana shook. “I don’t know,” he said. “I scared him off. But I think it was too late then. I could—I could feel it, I could feel something happening to him, to Mishima. It—It felt like something broke, inside him. In his heart.”

“In his heart?” Makoto asked. “Are you sure?”

Morgana nodded.

“So—what? What’s that mean?” Ryuji asked.

Akira had an idea.

“When did all this happen?” Ann asked.

“Last week,” Morgana admitted.

And Akira had gone about his everyday life like nothing was wrong when one of his friends—when _Yuuki_ —was suffering, hurting enough to break on the inside.

He stalked from the room and down the stairs, ignoring the calls of his team and Boss, one hand going for the phone in his pocket. He tugged it out, uncaring of the beginnings of rain overhead; this was Yuuki. Yuuki deserved this much from him.

Akira, despite being silent, despite listening with all he had, hadn’t heard a word he was actually saying, hadn’t taken heed of the desperation in his eyes, had let it all snowball instead of talking _with_ him.

 _This is my fault_ , he thought, thumbing the Nav. _I have to fix it._

“Akira, wait!”

Ryuji caught up to him first; he was the fastest out of all of them, despite his old injury. Morgana was right beside him, begging for forgiveness without saying a word.

Akira ignored them both.

Morgana said, “You think he’s in Mementos, don’t you?”

“Mishima?!” Ryuji cried, dodging a pair of businessmen, their briefcases swinging wide. “Why would he be there?”

“Whatever broke inside him must have been his Shadow emerging,” the cat explained, trotting to keep up with them. “If we let this go on for much longer, there’s every chance he’ll develop a Palace. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that to happen.”

Ryuji spat out a curse; the others finally caught up with them at the station, just as the rain began to worsen; Futaba, horribly out of breath, nearly collapsed the second they were on the train. Akira let her sprawl over a whole bench of seats, too busy trying to strangle the standing bar and remembering what the kanji for Yuuki’s name was. agu-rei-feu? But that couldn’t be right. He blinked, glared at his phone, and glared harder when Ann tried to take it away. “We know you’re worried, but I don’t think breaking it is going to help right now. Okay?”

The subway outside was dark. In the windows, his friends waited, scattered about the car: Makoto, passing around forgotten bags, Morgana peering out from under her arm; Ryuji, sitting with Futaba, pushing her upright even as she sagged against him, complaining of dying; Yusuke, silent and resolute, his lips thinned to a grim line. Ann, right by his side.

All of them, right by his side.

He pulled in a breath and let it out slow; the train clattered over the rails, down the line, through the tunnel, and some of the anger in him faded.

Sure, Akira hadn’t seen it coming. He had barely seen the actor coming. But it was fair, he thought; all of them had some sort of pressing need to take down their target of the month. The actor couldn’t be much different, in the end, and Yuuki had been right: taking him down would raise them up to new heights. He didn’t know the man didn’t have a Palace and wasn’t in Mementos; he didn’t know there was nothing to change. Yuuki simply convinced himself of it, sure that every person had a dark side.

Why shouldn’t they? Even Akira had a dark side. Not even he could be a savior forever.

No, he was angry about not realizing it himself. Angry about not saying a word even though Yuuki was all but begging him to. Akira had talked him out of the buffet; why hadn’t he tried to talk him out of that? Because it was too late?

When had he ever let that stop him?

“Thanks,” he managed at last, the word almost strangled as it came out of his throat, but Ann smiled and nodded and stayed right by his side. Even as they trawled through Mementos, searching for Yuuki’s Shadow, Akira’s hands bloodless under his gloves as he clasped them tight, Ryuji squeezed in on his other side.

Even as they got closer and closer, and something familiar snatched his attention away from his hands. Like the smell of his mother’s perfume, or the gentle pressure of his father’s company, or the static buzz as a monitor flickered to life. It made every hair stand on end; it made the breath catch in his throat.

It couldn’t be, could it? He’d hoped for it, longed for it, shoved it down where no one but he and Goro could reach, never let it see the light of day—but…

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t be Yuuki.

(Unbeknownst to him, his suit flickered, like white noise on a screen. Ryuji caught the moment one of Akira’s heeled shoes turned into a simple slipper, his calves bare up to the knee; Ann caught the moment his heavy coat was replaced with elbow-length gloves with half the fingers missing, the leather of her suit brushing his bare arm. Yusuke, turning around to ask a question, caught the vest that exposed his midriff and the trailing belt-sash trapped under a leg. Makoto, checking the rear view, only saw his mask disappear.

Futaba, lounging in the back seat, startled at the burst of sudden energy and the beginning of a phantom song in her ears.)

Morgana rounded a turn, spotted the spiral of tracks leading into a wall, and charged.

* * *

Yuuki always saw into his heart.

It was the way of things: Akira would wake up in the morning and talk to Yuuki until he arrived at school, and then he would cook or clean or craft something until lunch, when he would get to eat and talk to Yuuki until class started up again, and then he would get to explore the plains or visit Morgana or read until Yuuki was out of class for the day, and then he would talk some more. He talked for hours upon hours, about nothing and everything and whatever lay in between. He taught Yuuki to cook something besides toast and instant noodles. He made peace with Yuuki’s thieving friends, who only meant the best for him.

And sometimes he closed his eyes in between it all and remembered.

Every horrible thing he’d done, every brave thing he’d said, every awful twist of fate he’d endured, every snatched bit of peace and quiet he broke down in—he remembered, and Yuuki saw. Yuuki saw him at his weakest, at his lowest. Yuuki saw him die, the air transforming into heat and fire, the ship twisting and breaking into pieces all around him. Yuuki saw him kill, saw him weep, saw him, saw him, saw him—

(“Do you think he’s okay?” Ryuji asked, softly enough that even Makoto was surprised. Yuuki’s Shadow, a pale-faced thing with his hands tucked in his pockets and clouds of black smoke unfurling from his feet, stared at them, his golden gaze transfixed on Akira.

Akira, who was still flickering like he was a flame about to go out.

“I don’t know,” Makoto was forced to admit. “Morgana? What do you think?”

Morgana said nothing, only shaking his head.)

—and Akira, even when they could finally speak at last, couldn’t do the same. He couldn’t heal the hurts in Yuuki’s heart. He couldn’t sing with joy over Yuuki’s success or sigh over Yuuki’s failures. He couldn’t do a thing, trapped in a dream and behind a screen light-years upon light-years away.

So he did the only thing he could do: he memorized the shape and feel, the smell and substance, the melody and refrain of Yuuki’s soul. Every note, every pause, every harried line, every measure like a bone about to break. He could never forget it, not even if he tried. He could sing it even now, without a single word of power behind it, and it would still be true.

It would always be true. It was Yuuki.

It would, and it was, and yet his feet refused to move. The song played in his ears, just a touch off beat and just slightly out of tune, and so filled to bursting with rage and indignation and fear it made Akira’s heart ache.

There was no way to apologize for leaving him on his own for so long. There was no way he would understand, much less accept, that Akira had been searching for him. It was a childish notion, trying to rekindle a feeling that was never there. If Akira wanted his heart, he was going to have to earn it, bit by bit and day by day, and he couldn’t do that if Yuuki was here, plotting and warping and twisting what was left of his heart and soul.

Akira didn’t want that. The song his soul sang was sad and lonely but beautiful, all the same. It didn’t deserve to be marred any further.

The Shadow didn’t move as Akira finally stepped closer; he only glared harder, squaring his shoulders. The rest of the Thieves stayed behind, unnoticed and unsure.

“Yuuki,” Akira said, once he was close enough to see the way the Shadow’s gaze drifted from him to one of the other Thieves and back again, over and over.

“Oh,” the Shadow said, his lip curling, “so now you want to talk, huh?”

“You don’t?”

He pulled his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms, still sneering. Akira never realized he was capable of making a face like that.

There were a lot of things Yuuki was capable of, he was finding.

“I’m sure you care a whole bunch about what I’ve got to say,” the Shadow mocked. “Tons, in fact! Good for you, doing the bare minimum of keeping up a conversation—and would you look at that? _I’m_ the one talking again.”

Before, Akira was very good at keeping his mouth shut. People filled the silence naturally; they liked to talk about themselves, and Akira liked to listen, imagining what it would be like to finally grow up and move out of his tiny hometown. In the dream, he had no choice but to talk Yuuki’s ear off. He was a bit tired of talking about himself.

“You want me to?” he asked, to be sure.

The Shadow rolled his eyes. “It’s like I’m talking to a brick wall. God, how can you be so damn dense? All this work I’ve been putting in, all this effort I’ve been expending, and all I get as a thank you is a plate of fries and silence? Isn’t what I’ve been doing worth more than that?”

“It is,” Akira said.

“I’m sure,” the Shadow sneered. “Thought real hard on that one, didn’t you?”

“You want me to thank you?”

“Not _here_. Where it matters, dipshit.”

Akira hummed. A dozen ways to say it flashed through his mind—most of them on the wrong side of friendship. This Yuuki wasn’t his boyfriend. They weren’t dating. Homemade lunches and kisses pressed to his skin, to his knuckles, to the soft curve of his eyelids, just wouldn’t be feasible.

“Why are you still standing around?” the Shadow asked. “You wanna tell me thank you, you’d better get moving.”

“In a minute,” Akira said. “I want to tell you something first.”

He eyed the Thieves behind him; Ryuji gave an enthusiastic, if confused, thumbs-up. The rest of them stood and stared and waited; Morgana’s tail flashed through the air.

He turned back to the Shadow—Yuuki, still sneering, fingers tapping with impatience, the barest hint of a burn on his chin. Akira pressed his thumb to it and sidled up close, far faster than the Shadow could react, and Akira’s gut burned anew at the naked fear in its eyes. “This shit you’re pulling,” he said, “with the actor and Akiyama and whatever the hell else is going on? It’d better stop, Yuuki. The Phantom Thieves aren’t your ticket to fame and fortune. We aren’t here to do whatever you tell us to. We just happen to agree with the same targets, that’s all, and it just so happens that every single person who makes your day a little bit worse isn’t worth our time. Hell, it’s not worth yours. It’s not worth running yourself into the ground to get a little payback, is it?”

“It’s not payback, it’s justice,” the Shadow countered.

“Even if it is, it’s still all about you.”

The Shadow had nothing to say to that.

“That’s the thing: it’s not all about you, or me, or any of us. It’s not about how righteous it feels. It’s about how righteous it _is_. Do you think I’m going around, changing the hearts of every single Shujin student who talked bad about me, Yuuki? I’m not. There’d be no point. People can change on their own, without our help. It’s the ones who can’t that we target. The weak ones, who bury themselves in lies and excuses and justifications until they can’t see straight anymore. Understand?”

“I’m not weak,” the Shadow protested.

“No?” Akira examined his face: the burns on his chin; the bags under his eyes; the angry, defensive crease to his brow. “You’re acting like it, hiding behind the Phantom Thieves and what we do.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“Riding our coattails to fame sure sounds like it.”

The Shadow grit his teeth.

“Still want me to talk? I can go on for days.”

The Shadow reached up, grabbing a fistful of cloth, but he said nothing.

Akira said, “Don’t like it much when the tables are turned, hm?”

The Shadow focused on his throat, on his chin. His jaw shook under Akira’s hand in the beginnings of a revelation.

Akira asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

“You shouldn’t,” the Shadow said.

“Even if I want to?”

“Then you’re just like they are,” he said, gaze going distant. Thinking of Akiyama or Kamoshida or whoever caused this. Maybe it was all of them. “Just like the rest of them. You make me sick.”

“I don’t mean to—”

“Just go,” the Shadow said, shoving him away. His lip still curled, his arms half-crossed, fingers tapping—but his eyes were filled with pain. Agony. “Haven’t you done enough? I get the—the picture, okay? Be a good little manager. Message received.”

Akira turned to go, eyed the rest of Thieves still waiting, tensed. He caught Ann’s eye, and briefly thought of Suzui, on the edge of the rooftop. He wondered what Kamoshida told her to make her go up there, to try to escape. He wondered if he was saying it, if it had already been said, if there was any way to take it back.

He turned back around, grabbed up one of the Shadow’s hands, pressed a hasty kiss to his knuckles. It wasn’t Yuuki, not quite, not yet, but it would do.

And, he hoped, the Shadow would take it back to him.

“You’re more than that,” he said, relishing the surprise on the Shadow’s face. “You’re more than just that, and you always will be.”

Then he left with a flare of his coattails, leaving the Shadow and the storm inside of him and the hot, lingering burn of a promise on his skin.

The Shadow sank to his knees, pain like a slow acid burn worming its way up his spine, one hand still outstretched, as if waiting for Akira to return.

(In the van, Ryuji asked, “So. Uh. Do I wanna ask?”

Akira only laughed in response.)

* * *

The Phantom Thieves, sans one leader, nestled together in a booth at the Shibuya diner; Ryuji, Yusuke, and Makoto on one side, Ann and Futaba and Morgana, hidden in Ann’s bag on the other. For a long while they stared at each other over their drinks. Yusuke opted to pull out a sketchbook and draw, the lines forming Akira as he’d been in the van: belly vest and elbow gloves and that long sash.

Then he stared at it, tapping his pencil. He moved on to a different page.

“So,” Makoto said, “does anyone have any idea what that was? Morgana?”

“I don’t know,” the cat said. “All I can think is that it’s a strong mental image he has of himself.”

“And it’s tied to Mishima,” she said. “This never happened before, did it?”

Ann and Ryuji shook their heads; Morgana, lost in thought, stared at the table. Yusuke’s pencil skritched and scratched across paper until another image of Akira was laid out before him: a side view, hair curling around his ears, some kind of band poking out of the mess. He was smiling with adoration that lit up his whole face, even in graphite.

“I just don’t understand,” Makoto said. “How—what is going on? Should we expect to see more of it in the future? What about Akechi?”

“It’s not like we’ve got a plan to deal with him,” Ann said.

“And they’re besties.” Ryuji scoffed. “Don’t ask me how that happened.”

“Yusuke? Have you heard anything?”

“I have not,” Yusuke stated. He turned his sketch over and over, tilted his head, examined it from every angle.

“Whatever it was, it was crazy strong,” Futaba said. “Power level over nine thousand, easy. M-maybe that’s why it did all that flickery stuff? It was too strong, and he couldn’t control it?”

“It’s possible,” Morgana said, “but that doesn’t explain why it happened now, and not when he first awakened, or any time in between.”

Ann slumped in her seat, realization and doubt at war on her face.

Futaba mumbled something under her breath, her brows knitting into confusion. The waitress wandered by to check on them; Ryuji ordered fries to send her on her way.

“What?” he asked, at the incredulous looks he received. “It’s been a long day. Don’t a guy deserve something after all that?”

Makoto only sighed, “I suppose you’re right. It’s long past dinner now. Would anyone else like to order something?”

They mumbled out orders, save Futaba—who was insistent her emergency supply of instant noodles would suffice—and Yusuke, too absorbed in his drawing to notice much else.

By the time they were prodding at french fries and Surprise Sandwiches and a Totem Pole, Futaba worked up the courage to say, “Ai rei-ah.”

“Dude, what?” Ryuji said, through a mouthful of fish paste.

Morgana perked up. “The song!”

Futaba nodded, ignoring the spear of broccoli Makoto passed her on a napkin. “I thought it was too well thought out to be something he came up with on the spot. It had breaks for the chorus and instruments. It was kind of obvious that he wasn’t used to it without them, and—”

“It was like he was remembering something,” Morgana added, a touch too early in his excitement.

But Futaba nodded along. “He even said that it was something he shared with Akechi, some kind of code.”

Makoto frowned in thought. “Akechi wouldn’t be likely to share that with us, would he?”

“Prolly not,” Ryuji stated. “Dude hates our guts. Akira’s the exception, lucky him.”

“He does get pretty dodgy with his fans whenever they ask… anything, really,” Ann said, and Ryuji gaped at her. She turned to him, affronted. “What? So I follow his food blog, big deal!”

“It’s Akechi,” was his only retort.

“So?”

“Please,” Makoto said, trying to calm them down before things got heated and they were thrown out, but was interrupted by Yusuke’s chuckle. It was dry, humorless. He dragged a finger down the sketch.

“I simply cannot remember,” he muttered. “I’ve seen this before. I know I have. We worked together, I’m sure of it. And yet, it’s like a dream of a time long forgotten.”

“Dude,” Ryuji said, before being hushed by Ann.

“I’ve seen it, but where? When? In a room, on my own? Ever on my own? Through a screen—through a dream?”

“Yusuke?” Makoto asked, tentative, quiet.

“A dream,” he said again, sounding even more unsure. “An ode to an unborn star. The heavens all around us. And Akira, he was—”

He broke off, eyes closed in concentration.

A minute went by, then two, then three. The group waited in near silence, the only sounds for a long time the clinking of ice in their glasses and the late-night crowd around them.

“No,” he said at last, causing the group to sag in disappointment. “No, I cannot remember. Myself, and Akira, and the stars— and Goro Akechi, asking if I saw him. That is all.”

“And this,” Futaba said, nudging his sketchbook.

“Yes, and this,” he agreed, though he didn’t seem pleased by it. His hand had sketched out a younger, smaller Akechi in a boy’s kimono, some hair tied into a braid tucked behind an ear.

“Well, I think we have our work cut out for us, then,” Makoto said.

“What do you mean?” Ann asked.

“We don’t know when this will affect our leader again,” Makoto explained. “And let’s face it: without him, our fighting strength is greatly diminished. The only reason we weren’t accosted on our way to… well, you know, was because of that power. But we can’t rely on that forever. It’s unstable, just like he is. And this is clearly affecting him in other ways as well. Maybe, if he talked about it—”

“Dude, I tried asking, and he just laughed!” Ryuji reminded her.

“—it might help,” she finished, shooting him a glare.

“I don’t know,” Ann said. “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, we can’t make him, can we?”

“That’s why I said we have our work cut out for us.”

Makoto looked at each of them in turn—Futaba, frowning at Yusuke’s sketches, Yusuke himself finally tucking his pencil away; Ann and Ryuji sharing worried glances over their plates; Morgana, determination lighting a fire in his eyes—and said, “I think it’s obvious that he’s hurting in some way, shape, or form. He should be able to trust us with that, shouldn’t he?”

“Guess so,” Ryuji mumbled.

“Yeah,” Ann agreed, without enthusiasm.

Still, Makoto tried to coax it out of them. “We have to _try_. It’s Akira; we all owe too much to him to let him suffer like this. And even if he’s not suffering, he should know that we’re willing to share in anything he wants to share.”

They agreed, gradually. Futaba with her brows knit over Yusuke’s sketches long after he packed the book away; Yusuke, slouched over the table, thinking and remembering or trying to; Ann, with her lip caught in her teeth, going over every interaction; Ryuji, scowling at the table as if Kamoshida’s face was burned into it; Morgana, mumbling plans to himself in the depths of Ann’s bag.

Makoto only sighed and adjourned the meeting.

(As they left, they failed to notice the man in the booth beside theirs, a worn brown hunting cap pulled low over his face, a cold cup of Fruitea and a Nostalgic Steak in front of him, forgotten.

 _ **THREADS**_ , snarled Azathoth.

Takuto could hardly begin to calm his racing heart.)

* * *

Yuuki paused in his typing, blinking slowly at the screen.

Then he wiped the tear off his cheek.

He stared at the moisture left on his fingers; another tear rolled, itching and hot.

His room felt too small; his laptop too bright; the darkness all around him too heavy; the rain falling outside too hard. It was too much.

It was too familiar.

And it hurt.

He dragged in a breath that seemed to catch in his throat and fought back the sob that wanted to follow. He wiped up another tear, then another; got to his feet and slammed his laptop shut.

All those people, just saying what they thought, and he’d been—he’d been—

Harassing them. Threatening them. Dangling their words over them like they were evil, and if they were evil, the Phantom Thieves would enact justice. That was what the Phantom Thieves did, after all. He would know. He was their—

He grunted at a sudden shock of pain lancing its way through his skull. He was their—

He whimpered. It hurt. It hurt so much.

But he was their—

It _hurt_.

But. Did it matter what he was? Couldn’t anyone run a site? Couldn’t anyone find targets for the Phantom Thieves? It didn’t have to be him. It could have been anyone.

Like Komaki. Like Aizawa. Or Takaoka, or anyone from the team. It could have been Suzui, bedridden in the hospital. Yuuki wasn’t the only one who wanted to watch the Thieves succeed.

After what he did, did he even deserve to?

(Was this what a change of heart felt like? An entire cascade of guilt, roaring all around him, trying to swallow him whole?

If it was, it was working.)

It felt even worse than one of Kamoshida’s beatings and the running dressing-down he liked to keep. It felt worse than being called _spindly little faggot_ to his face; it felt worse than hearing his own mother call him a prostitute and not hearing his own father disagree.

For a while, he stood there, silently crying, listening to the rain drum against the balcony door out in the living room. The room came back to him in shades of gray: there was his old Risette poster; there were the handful of participation trophies he’d earned on his middle school volleyball team; there were the stacks of notebooks, his summer homework left forgotten. Clothes strewn wherever he could throw them and his uniform neat on its hook on the wall. His desk; the laptop; the little knickknacks he’d kept over the years. His phone, lighting up with a message.

Yuuki squeezed his eyes shut against the glare and fled the apartment. He just needed space to think. He needed air, fresh air that wasn’t laced with the scent of failure and disappointment; air that didn’t smell like him.

So he went up, and up, and up, his feet slipping on the stairs. He climbed until his legs burned with effort and his lungs ached with strain, and then he climbed some more. Up and up and up, floor after floor, landing after landing, until he was at the roof and fighting the wind to get the door open.

What greeted him on the other side was a storm.

Lightning flickered through clouds like flame; thunder rumbled harder than the pounding heart in his chest. Warm rain lashed his face and soaked through his clothes; wind tore at him from every direction. In the storm, he was nothing. Up on the roof, out in the open, with the whole world to see, and he was _nothing_ —

Yuuki fought his way over to the fence. He tangled his fingers in the links— _cold_ —and pressed his face to the metal— _so cold_ —and stood there for a while, staring down at the lights on the street. Cars going by; a storefront; this high up he couldn’t even see what they were, just that they were there, tiny and insignificant. They, too, were nothing.

The whole world was nothing. He was sure of it: the only things that mattered were the righteous and the unjust, and now Yuuki was neither, just like everyone else.

Average. Boring.

Nobody.

The thought made his chest seize up; he didn’t want to be nobody. Who did?

But someone had to be, so the righteous and the unjust could become all the more apparent. So they could wage their battles amid the everyday humdrum of life. So they could scrape a little bit of feeling out of the world.

But… he didn’t want to be nobody. He didn’t want to be forgotten. He didn’t want to be a footnote on a page in someone else’s life; he didn’t want to be a tool for the Phantom Thieves to use when they pleased. He didn’t want to be the butt of the joke anymore.

The wind tore his breath from his lungs; the thunder drowned out his sobs. He was nothing. He was no one.

He was nobody.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, letting the rain soak into him and watching lightning flash across the sky and screaming with every peal of thunder. He wasn’t sure when he started to shiver despite the rain’s warmth; he wasn’t sure when his feet went numb with it. It could have been hours; it could have been minutes. Long, long minutes where he remembered that he could climb the fence, despite the rain slick on the links. Long minutes where he remembered that no one would think it odd if he slipped and fell.

Long minutes where he realized that, for the seconds in between the fall and the landing, he would be one with the air, like smoke left to drift in the wind. Insubstantial. Weightless.

Nothing.

And when he hit the ground, he really would be nothing.

He would be nothing to the Phantom Thieves. He would be nothing to his parents. He would be nothing to Igarashi and Akiyama and Kamoshida. He was already nothing to the voice that whispered in his ear the first time around, and this way they would never have to think about him—worry about him—bother themselves with his troubles—ever again.

Because he would be nothing. He was already a nobody. It was practically a promotion.

So he tightened his hold and pulled himself up.

* * *

Hirotaka woke with dread curling cold and lifeless in his gut.

He rolled over; shut his eyes; tried to get back to sleep. It was there, just on the edge of consciousness, just out of reach, when a thought occurred to him: the house was quiet.

Rain lashed the window. Thunder rumbled.

But the house was quiet.

He levered himself up, all his joints aching and creaking. He rubbed at his face, glanced at the clock. Too late, too early.

He sighed, getting to his feet. He was awake; might as well see if Yuuki was asleep or not. If he wasn’t, Hirotaka could make him something to eat, or bring him something to drink. He was going to waste away in front of that computer one day, Hirotaka was sure of it.

He shuffled over to Yuuki’s door and gave it a soft knock. “Yuuki? You still up?”

No answer. But even if he was, he wasn’t likely to give one. That site of his ate up all his focus.

“I’m coming in, alright?”

Still nothing. But Hirotaka had been in and out without Yuuki noticing before. Now wouldn’t be different—except it was. Yuuki’s laptop sat closed on his desk, his phone right beside it. His bed laid empty, the sheets still tugged into some semblance of neatness.

Hirotaka blinked, turned on the light, and looked again. Laptop, closed. Bed, empty. Phone, forgotten.

The last time Hirotaka saw his room like this, it was after Hiyoko… after she…

 _No_ , he thought, shaking his head. It was just last year. Hirotaka had woken with a craving for a smoke and gone up to the roof, not wanting to risk rain ruining the expensive couch Hiyoko bought, and…

He sighed again, stumbled over to the door; he shrugged on a jacket, shoved keys into a pocket and his feet into shoes.

The building was quiet. He was used to it, working until all hours of the day, but today it made the hair on his arms stand on end and sent a shiver through him. He was getting old, that was all.

That didn’t stop him from hurrying to the elevator.

His cigarettes were long gone—he’d tossed the pack after Yuuki reminded him that he was trying to quit, bought more nicotine gum and those patches in their place—but the lighter wasn’t. He pulled it out, flicking the wheel, watching sparks ignite and die in the blink of an eye. Watching the flame dance in his hand, ignorant that he controlled its fate.

It was so easy to die, he thought. It was so hard to live, and it was so easy to die, to give up and roll over and watch the rest of the world run its course without you. That was why he picked up smoking: it made the world a little less hard, a little more forgiving, at least for a while.

So when Yuuki joined that volleyball team he’d been proud. If Yuuki had teammates, if he had a sport to play and people to enjoy it with, life wouldn’t be so hard on him. Even if he never made a career of it like Hiyoko hoped; even if he wanted to do something else with the rest of his life.

Now, though, Hirotaka wasn’t so sure anymore. What good had teammates done Yuuki at Shujin? What good had that spitfire of a captain been, watching his team get pummeled into the floor?

What good had Hirotaka been, sitting ignorant in his cubicle?

The elevator pinged; Hirotaka shoved the lighter in his pocket and made for the door, passing the stairwell and the maintenance closet. He fought the wind to get it open, shoes slipping on the wet floor.

Ah, so he was right.

The storm raged as he made his way onto the roof, lightning striking rods off in the distance and flickering in the clouds, forked tongues dancing in and out of cover. Rain sprayed his face; he shoved a hand up to keep the worst of it at bay and squinted, searching.

A flash of lightning, illuminating Yuuki, halfway up the fence and climbing higher.

“No,” Hirotaka wheezed as all the breath left his lungs, a million different ways this could end flashing through his head. He didn’t like any of them, and forced his legs to move— _why were they so heavy?_ —and his voice to shout— _why was it so weak?_ —Yuuki’s name, over and over again.

But Yuuki didn’t hear. He climbed even higher; Hirotaka latched onto one of his pants legs, tried to tug him down, but Yuuki was young and still had that muscle mass from volleyball, and Hirotaka hadn’t lifted anything heavier than his briefcase in years.

Hirotaka grit his teeth and held on as Yuuki tried to buck him off. He squared his feet, squinting against the rain. Lightning flashed, even closer, now. Yuuki, half-turned to focus on what was stopping him, was a brief picture of anguish.

“Yuuki, please!” Hirotaka shouted against the wind. They were close enough. He had to hear him, right? “Please! Come down! It’s—it’s dangerous up there!”

What an idiotic thing to say. Of course it was dangerous up there. That was why he was climbing the fence in the first place.

“Yuuki! Please, please come down!”

He glanced up at the top of the fence. Hirotaka could almost hear him working out how much effort it would be to shake him off and keep climbing, and his arms trembled with enough strain as it was. Hirotaka had gravity on his side; Yuuki had to fight it. He wasn’t going to win.

But as he started the climb down, Hirotaka still feared. He could change his mind any day of the week. He could come back up here, he could climb, and no one would stop him. No one would care to, except to avoid the unpleasant feeling of watching someone jump to their death. They wouldn’t care about Yuuki.

 _Akira would_ , he thought, as Yuuki’s feet hit the rooftop. He bundled Yuuki up in his arms—so small, so fragile, so thin—and tried to will his racing heart to calm down.

He thought Yuuki said something then, but between the wind and the softness of his voice, Hirotaka couldn’t hear it. He felt just the ghost of sensation, drifting past his ear, something weak but warm and alive.

Alive. That was all that mattered.

They went back to the elevator, dripping water all over the floor. Once back in the building, Yuuki began to shiver, his lips nearly blue with cold, his face wan. Hirotaka rubbed feeling back into his fingers and fought the urge to crumple right there in the elevator; they got all the way inside their apartment before he did, dragging Yuuki down with him.

All the words he wanted to say seemed selfish. He wanted Yuuki to promise never to do that again; he wanted Yuuki to swear he would never go up on the roof—or any roof—ever again. He wanted Yuuki to understand how much it hurt, seeing him climb that fence, like a punch straight to the gut.

But this wasn’t about Hirotaka. This was about Yuuki, and how he felt, and why he’d gone up there in the first place. Kamoshida was gone and so was the abuse, but some scars refused to fade like so many bruises. Some scars stayed.

“Dad?” Yuuki said, at some point, his voice hoarse.

Hirotaka was aware that his wasn’t much better as he said, “Yeah?”

Yuuki didn’t say anything for a long time. Hirotaka could only wonder what was running through his head: apologies, maybe, or reasons. Never excuses; nothing ever would be anymore, Hirotaka decided.

In the end, all he said was, “I’m cold.”

Hirotaka, shivering in his own rain-soaked pajamas, his shoes ruined beyond repair, could only agree.

* * *

To say Akira was ecstatic the next time he met up with Goro would be an understatement.

He found Yuuki. He found _Yuuki_ , scared and alone and angry but alive.

“Please, try to contain yourself,” Goro said, over the crooning of the woman in the corner.

“Guess I can’t help it,” Akira said, reaching for a napkin and folding it. Goro watched his hands work until the crane was nearly done, sipping at his drink, most of his attention on the music. It was a good song; the singer had a lovely voice.

“I suppose I should offer my congratulations,” Goro said. “You’ve found the love of your life. Now you’re free to be as disgustingly adoring as you wish. Tell me it’s difficult not to be.”

Akira hummed in thought. “It is,” he decided, with a grin that could power all of Tokyo. It was Yuuki. This Yuuki and his Yuuki, very nearly the exact same person, the only difference between them being the phone app. He creased the same fold, over and over. “And I’m happy I found him, really. Really, really happy I found him. That’s why I wanted to tell you.”

“And you had to meet with me, because?”

Akira sat back. It would be hard to say how he knew this Yuuki was his Yuuki. It would be hard to mention any of it without mentioning the Metaverse, and Goro’s inquisitive nature would mean he would want to experience it, too.

(If he wasn’t secretly Black Mask, as nearly everyone in the Thieves thought.)

“I wanted to let you know I followed your advice,” he said, after a moment of thought. “I, uh, told my parents. And Ann and her friend. They were all really supportive. More than I thought they’d be.”

Goro snorted, decidedly un-Prince-like. “Secretly hoping you’ll come around and love a girl, like the proper citizen you’re supposed to be, most likely.”

Akira couldn’t deny that.

“You know, I’m failing to see a problem here. Your parents and friends are fine with it. You’ve found your dearest love. Unless”—Goro tilted his head, examining, theorizing—“there’s already trouble in paradise for our resident savior?”

“I’m not a savior,” Akira mumbled. He didn’t feel like one, anyway. What kind of savior couldn’t tell his crush he liked them? A terrible one, that’s who.

He listened to the music for a while. The singer transitioned from one song to the next so smoothly it made his head spin. What he wouldn’t give to sing like that—

But. There was no point to singing anymore, outside of entertaining Futaba. She was eavesdropping from her house less and less and helping him clean the shop more often just to hear his songs live, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her they were fractions of what they used to be. Powerless shells of great and mighty Songs that caused miracles and heartache in the same breath.

Goro let him think, finishing off his drink and ordering water. Akira folded another crease.

He said, “Yuuki ih him-eil-i;”

“Are you sure?”

 _You make me sick_ , that Shadow had said. Whether it was nerves or the anticipation of abuse or whatever had caused those burns, Akira didn’t know. It could have been all three; it could have been none of them. The one thing he did know was that he was part of the problem. Akira and the Phantom Thieves had caused his spiral. The Shadow wouldn’t lie about that.

“I’m sure.”

“Alright,” Goro said. Akira slumped so far into his chair that he was practically lying on it; the elation was still there, but it was waning. Yuuki hated him. Yuuki would never want to be with him.

Akira had to accept that.

“Honestly. I’ve never seen you get so down so quickly,” Goro muttered, peering over the edge of the table. “So you’ve been rejected. It’s not like you haven’t fought tooth and nail for what you want before.”

“That was different,” Akira said. Fighting for the lives of hundreds of thousands of people versus fighting to make one person like him. “I can’t change how he feels. And I, uh, haven’t actually told him.”

Goro’s face went carefully blank. “Excuse me?”

“I told you I found him, not that I confessed.”

“You found him, and you didn’t immediately profess your undying love then and there? Has hell frozen over? Will pigs sprout wings and fly?”

“He’s going through a lot right now,” Akira defended. Goro rolled his eyes. “He is! A lot’s been going on this year. I don’t want to stress him out any more with an unwanted confession.”

“If you haven’t confessed, how do you know he hates you?”

“Because he told me so.”

Goro humphed. “Then what are you worrying over? If he hates you, get over him.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“ _You_ make it sound as if it’s not,” he said. He took a drink. “Unless there’s some reason you can’t? A group project, perhaps?” He shook his head. “The great and powerful Ionasal, felled by a pretty boy who hates him.”

“Don’t call me that,” Akira said.

Goro only stared at him.

Akira sighed. It was odd; Yuuki loved him Before. There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t here, too. So, why? Because there was no connection? Because there was, and he was afraid of it?

The Shadow was afraid when Akira came close. He wasn’t able to focus on him, gaze darting around, body trembling. If that wasn’t fear, Akira was going to eat his glasses.

But Yuuki never had a problem focusing on him. Yuuki never had a problem with looking him in the eye and declaring their next target, or his next update to the site, or his failure to get them both dates for the night. Or, he hadn’t until their meeting in the park.

Akira went back to his crane. Goro let him think.

Something had happened in the park, something that not even Yuuki’s Shadow wanted to talk about. Something that made him scared when Akira came too close; something that left burns on his chin. _They smelled funny_ , Morgana had said. He had come back smelling vaguely like smoke and skunk spray, and as far as Akira knew there weren’t any skunks in Tokyo. _They did something weird._

“Say,” he said, “have you heard anything about drug users in the parks?”

Goro shrugged. “It’s a nation-wide problem. We can’t catch all of them, especially not with Kaneshiro’s gang still around, spreading the stuff to every corner they can crawl into.”

Akira nodded. He had the feeling Morgana knew exactly what he was talking about but dumbed it down for the ladies at the table, and for Ryuji’s sake, and because he’d promised.

_Something weird. He couldn’t breathe._

Akira hummed. He abandoned his crane to lean across the table. “Want to help me bust some, then?”

“You are aware that vigilantism is illegal, yes?”

“Is it vigilantism if a detective goes with me?”

“Perhaps I’ll only go with you if you tell me what this is really about.”

He couldn’t. Not with Morgana’s testimony the only evidence he had, and it wasn’t as if Yuuki was going to talk about it. If he wanted to, his Shadow would have. If he wanted to, he wouldn’t have made Morgana promise not to.

“I’m going to find out why he hates me,” Akira said.

“And you want me to go along with you?”

“You can have all the credit for busting them if they’re there, Mr. Detective.”

It was Goro’s turn to snort. “I suppose you’ll want me to brandish my badge and demand they turn themselves in?”

“No,” Akira said. “I just want you to watch. Maybe record a little. Get some evidence.”

“Evidence, hm,” Goro said, leaning back and pretending to think. Akira knew that smile on his face, though: he wanted to do it. Goro could deny it all he liked, but he liked the attention he was getting from the public, bashing aside.

“Yeah, evidence,” Akira repeated.

“And how does evidence correlate to you finding out why the love of your life hates you?”

Akira shrugged. “Just a hunch.”

“A hunch,” Goro repeated, deadpan.

“Yeah, a hunch. They haven’t steered me wrong so far, you know?”

Goro only sighed, but judging by the amusement dancing in his eyes, he was in.

Akira got up. “Let’s start tonight.”

“Must we?”

“The sooner the better, right?”

Goro hummed, finishing his water. He let Akira sit there and stew, listening to the singer in the back— _at a crossroads, I’m afraid, too_ —and said, at last, “Yes. I suppose you’re right. No time like the present.”

They paid for their drinks and went out into the night; the storm that had rolled through the night before was gone, leaving behind only an oppressive mugginess and puddles left on the pavement. Inokashira Park was no better, with its dirt paths slippery under Akira’s feet and water still dripping from the trees.

He hoped the bastards were there. He hoped he caught them in the act. He hoped he found out exactly what happened, whether he liked it or not.

 _ **How hypocritical**_ , Anubis growled. _**You tell the boy he can’t have his revenge, but then you go and seek it for him?**_

 _ **It’s for the one he loves**_ , chided Isis. _**Let the boy be a little rash!**_

Rash didn’t begin to cover it. There was no way Akira could hold his own against an entire gang—he was hoping, stupidly, that whoever messed with Yuuki would step forward if he asked. He was hoping he or she would boast about what they’d done. He was hoping it would be enough to help Yuuki—or start to—and he was hoping it would help him understand why Yuuki was so afraid of him, now.

He took a breath. The fountain came into view; Goro peeled off to some tree cover by the bathrooms, phone in hand and Akira’s bag on his shoulder. Akira himself did exactly what Yuuki did: he went to the bathroom, washed his hands for far too long, smelling something foul in the air and hearing a bunch of snickers moving from the behind the wall.

So it wasn’t just Yuuki they did this to, then.

Judging from the way they were spread out in front of the door when he exited, it clearly wasn’t their first time. The leader, someone big and burly but with a smattering of acne across his cheeks and hair that defied gravity, scowled down at him. His breath reeked.

“Huh,” said the guy attached to his hip, who was vaguely familiar. The burly leader’s arm was slung around his waist, and he rolled a joint around his mouth. Blowing smoke, he said, “It’s hero boy.”

“Sorry?” Akira said, playing dumb.

“Please, you’re not that stupid,” the boy said, with a grin Akira recognized—the boy from the diner, one of Akiyama’s friends, the smart-looking one. “Don’t tell me: poor little Mishima ran crying to you like a baby and you’re here for revenge.”

His friends laughed and jeered and passed around another joint, the embers bright in the dark.

“I don’t even know you,” Akira said.

The boy hummed, raked his gaze up and down Akira’s frame. A shiver went up his spine; the burly one wasn’t the leader. This one was. “Maybe not,” he finally said, after a long moment that seemed to stretch on forever, “but I’d like to know you.”

“No, thanks.”

He shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“What can I blame you for, then?”

He hummed again, then tugged the burly guy down to whisper something in his ear and pass the joint off. Akira watched as they traded lingering kisses, revulsion creeping up his throat.

Over the next minute or so, the rest of the group pulled away, trading more jeers and laughing at each other’s jokes and tucking the butts of the joints into baggies, until it was only Akira and the two who were still kissing, right in front of him, as if he didn’t exist.

He pushed his glasses up and couldn’t find Goro in the bushes.

The boy sent the big guy off on his way, but not before Akira had to witness the longest ass grab of his life. His stomach rolled over.

This guy could have done anything to Yuuki.

“So,” the boy said, once his lackeys were gone, “what did dear little Mishima tell you?”

“Nothing,” Akira told him.

The boy laughed. Akira didn’t join him; the longer he went on, the weaker it got, until they were left standing there, staring at each other. “Wait, shit, really? He didn’t tell you anything?”

“Not a word.”

The boy’s lips twitched, like he found that funny, too, and was trying not to laugh again.

“But I think it’s obvious something happened.”

“Yeah, something sure did all right. And you wanna hear it from me, huh, hero boy?”

Morgana, saying they did something weird. Kissing could be weird to a cat. There was every chance he didn’t understand what was going on, aside from Yuuki getting hurt; but there was every chance he did know, did understand, but refused to say exactly.

It was almost an admission.

Akira dared a step forward. “I think I can guess. You’re quite the pair of lovebirds, aren’t you, and you gave Yuuki a show?”

“I could give you one, too, you know.”

“You’re not my type.”

(Over in the bushes, Goro swallowed down bile.)

“Lemme guess, then,” the boy said, looking him up and down again. “Your type’s weak, little cowards like Mishima. Nobody else would jump to his defense like this. Hoping it’ll score you some good-boy points? If what I gave him wasn’t enough to light a fire under his ass, I don’t think you acting like a badass will do it, either.”

“He’s not weak.” Akira was sure of that. “And he’s not cowardly, either.”

“You don’t know him too well, then.”

“I think I do. I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand a thing.”

The boy shrugged. “You can think whatever you like, hero boy,” he said. “Maybe your Mishima’s braver, or whatever. But my Mishima—the one I remember—he’s a sniveling coward always looking for a tough guy to hide behind, and it looks like you fit the bill exactly and then some. Congrats.”

“And then some?”

His lips quirked into a half-smile. “There’s a fee for that info, hero boy.”

“No thanks.” Yuuki would tell him eventually. Akira wouldn’t have to change his heart—Yuuki could do it on his own. He was strong; he was brave; he just didn’t see it the way Akira did. But he could, if he tried.

(Akira didn’t want to admit that his heart leaped at the thought that maybe this Yuuki liked him back after all. _And then some_ could mean anything; maybe Yuuki only saw him as a hero, or a savior.

Or maybe he only saw Akira as a tool.)

The boy shrugged again. He tucked his hands in his pockets and said, “Fine, fine. Get all hung up on him if you want, but you’ll see. Once somebody else comes along that he thinks’ll be better at protecting him, he’ll ditch you. And then you’ll be alone, and wishing you’d paid my fee.”

He turned to leave, conversation over. Akira called after him: “So he ditched you before? Is that really what happened?”

The boy didn’t answer. He walked right by the bushes Goro was hiding in; Akira watched him until he was nothing but shadows along the path. He backed up until his head hit the bathroom door, stared blindly at the lights over the entrance, as bright as suns.

Goro emerged after a while, focused on his phone. He held out the briefcase and bag. “Hold these.”

Akira slung his bag on a shoulder with ease; Goro’s briefcase, on the other hand, was fairly heavy. Full of case files and backup case files and a brick or two, because why the hell else would it weigh an easy ten to fifteen pounds?

He hefted it in one hand, then the other, as Goro brushed leaves and the remnant of a spiderweb out of his hair, then nodded and tucked his phone away.

“So? Get anything good?”

“We’ll see,” Goro said, pulling a face at the lingering smell in the air. “I’ll alert the park authorities in the meantime, however. With any luck, one of them will be thinking hard enough about their future to give us names. …I suppose I should thank you.”

“No need,” Akira said. “I wasn’t… quite so serious about the drug bust.”

Goro smoothed down his sweater vest, brushed dirt off his sleeves. “Yes, I noticed. If there’s one thing you’re good at, it’s grandstanding. What were you hoping to accomplish with all that?”

“I think you can guess.”

He’d been hoping whatever asshole had scared Yuuki would boast about it. He’d been hoping to goad them into crowing their name for the whole park to hear. He’d been hoping to find the bastard in Mementos, Shadow ready for an ass-kicking, heart ready to be stolen. He’d been hoping the guy would then crawl back to Yuuki and apologize—and then what? Akira would win him over?

No, he would have made it worse.

“The bad-boy act doesn’t suit you, I fear,” Goro told him, thoughts going in a different direction. “You might have an assault on your record, but you’re no brute, getting into fights over little things like this.”

“He did something to Yuuki. That’s not little.”

“Perhaps not,” Goro said, “but remember: not only is he not your lover, he didn’t ask you to do this, either. I never took you to be a knuckle-dragging fool, but love has turned you into one.”

The night insects were loud; a pair of moths hovered by the lights, casting dancing shadows over their faces. Goro fixed him with a look: disappointment and exasperation and a tiny bit of satisfaction.

Akira heaved a sigh. The fountain burbled; off in the distance, a car horn slammed on.

“You make it sound like it’s wrong to be angry,” Akira said.

Goro looked away, focusing on the brick beside Akira’s head or the buzzing insect floating by his ear. His face went soft and wistful. “What good does anger do, Akira? Or desperation, for that matter? All it does—all it has ever done—is allow us our tiny, petty victories. We pile hate upon hate, revenge for revenge—and then what? What’s left?”

 _Love_ , Akira could have said; _should_ have said. Love, or forgiveness. The aching realization of how tired you were of fighting the whole world, or the whole universe. The aching realization of how tired you were of being alone.

Goro said, “You can’t fight his battles for him.”

“I know.” If he did, Yuuki would never grow. “I know, I just—”

“You just want to be his savior,” Goro spat, sudden and fierce. “Perhaps then he’ll love you, isn’t that right? If you run around, chasing off everyone who has ever hurt him, fixing all of his problems, giving him whatever he wants? Have you deluded yourself into thinking that’s _love_?”

“No, I—”

“At least I can be sure that will never change,” Goro huffed. “How many of your newfound friends have you saved that way, Akira? How many of them stay by your side because they owe you? Do they know the first thing about the things you’ve done—”

“Same to you,” Akira said, sharp as a knife, and Goro shut his mouth with a click of teeth. The night sat between them, thick and heavy, staved off only by the lights and the dancing shadows.

When he thought they were both calm, he said, “We should head home.”

Goro nodded, as silent as the space between the stars.


	13. The Moon, Rank 7

Yuuki wasn’t sure how long he spent sulking in bed. He slept when he felt like it, ate whatever Hirotaka brought him, occasionally stumbled over to the bathroom to do his business or brush his teeth, but that was all. His summer homework sat untouched; so did the Phan-site; so did his phone, which lit up with messages over the first day of school or so and then died when he couldn’t be bothered to plug it in.

He was still sulking when Ryuji came to visit, a heaping bag of snacks in one hand and his roots beginning to show. “Shit,” he said, taking in the room, crinkling his nose. Maybe it smelled. Yuuki couldn’t tell, couldn’t get the taste of smoke out of his mouth. “I thought it was gonna be bad, but. Shit.”

Hirotaka mumbled something from the living room, where he was parked once again on the couch with his laptop. Ryuji nodded at whatever he said, grinned, added, “No prob, Mr. M. You can head out for a while, if you want. Get some air. I think we’ll be okay.”

Yuuki wasn’t sure if his dad agreed to that; Ryuji came in, plopped himself on Yuuki’s only chair, and started pulling things out of the bag: chips and jerky, vitamin gummies and powder supplements, bottles of water and juice and soda. It was never-ending; every time he thought the bag was almost empty, Ryuji would pull something else out of it: a book, a board game, a small handheld.

“‘Taba’s loanin’ you that, so don’t break it. Okay?”

Yuuki could only stare at it. He thought of bright screens and praise and that endless, all-consuming need to have more of it, and shuddered.

When he tried to ask why, all that came out was a hoarse noise.

Ryuji mixed some powder into a bottle of water, held it out to him, thought better of it. “Here, man, sit up. We can play a game that way. Sound good?”

No, it wasn’t. But Ryuji didn’t seem to care; he hauled Yuuki upright, draped the blanket around his shoulders as Yuuki’s head spun, shoved the bottle into one hand. It was heavy. Yuuki didn’t want to drink, but the taste of smoke was stronger than ever. He washed it down with oranges.

Ryuji set up the board game on the corner of the bed, where Yuuki could reach the pieces. He cracked open a bag of chips and shoved some in Yuuki’s hand every time he rolled the die, and he had no choice but to eat if he wanted to keep playing.

Then Ryuji tucked that game away, and pulled out another.

They played. Yuuki sipped and ate and still managed to remember the rules better than Ryuji did, and even though his voice was shot, called him out on every infraction. He finished one bottle, then another; they went through two or three bags of snacks until Yuuki pushed them away.

“Full?” Ryuji asked.

Yuuki nodded.

“Cool,” was all he said.

When he left that night, Yuuki thought that was it, but he came back the next day, an even bigger bag in hand and his roots freshly bleached. Yuuki, who was attempting to power through his math homework, stared at the bag in horror.

“What?” Ryuji asked, even as it landed on the floor with a solid thunk that made Yuuki’s bed shake. There were no words for how he was feeling right then, so he shook his head and let Ryuji begin pulling the contents out: more chips and jerky; more water and juice and soda; a bag of oranges, and another of baby carrots; containers of curry and fried rice and salad. More board games, another book, a different game for the handheld.

“I don’t—” Yuuki croaked, then broke off with a cough.

“Akira said you needed to eat somethin’ other than junk food,” Ryuji said. His tone went deep. “‘It’s not good for him, Ryuji. He needs nutrients and care and there’s no love in instant noodles,’ or something like that.”

Love? Instant noodles? “What does—”

But it sounded familiar. Yuuki could practically hear him say it.

Ryuji only shrugged. “Beats me. When you’re down, anythin’s good, y’know?”

It would be more accurate to say that Yuuki just ate whatever was in front of him, whether it tasted decent or not. Hirotaka’s attempts at cooking were something; if left to his own devices, Yuuki would have been dead of starvation by then.

But, if left to his own devices, he would be a splatter of blood and bone on the pavement by now. So…

Yuuki eyed the spread laid out on his desk. He thought of Amamiya boasting that he could finally use Leblanc’s kitchen, could finally cook whatever he wanted, and could see him slaving away over every container. He prodded one that looked like it had cake in it. “I guess,” he said, then cleared his throat. “But… why do all of this for me?”

“‘Cause we’re friends, dude,” Ryuji said, without hesitation.

That couldn’t be right. He should have been angry; he should have been cursing Yuuki out for trying to use him. “But I—the actor—Akiyama—”

“Dude, we get it,” Ryuji said. He ran the straps of the bag through his hands, over and over. “It’s—it’s hard, y’know, when you finally have the means to—to fix things and people, like Kamoshida and Madarame and all them. I think about it all the time. Some asshole shoves into me on the train, or Takeishi and the guys from track get on my case, or some chick cuts in front of me in line. I _get_ it.”

“You don’t,” Yuuki said.

“I _do_ ,” Ryuji insisted. “I see smarmy bastards come onto Ann at the gym, and I wanna punch their damn faces in. Some stupid first-year chatters about Akira knifing people on the street, and I wanna shake her ‘til she gets it through her head that he ain’t like that. So, somebody like Akiyama? Who bullied the shit out of you? I _get_ that.”

Yuuki shut his eyes. Igarashi, his mouth tasting like smoke, the curl to his lip. If Igarashi had kissed him in that empty classroom—if he had done anything more than stare—what would Yuuki have done? Laugh it off? Do whatever Igarashi wanted him to, like he always did? Would he have thought it meant anything?

He said, “I thought we were friends.”

He heard confusion in Ryuji’s voice as he said, “Uh, we are, dude. I just said so.”

“No,” Yuuki said, “me and—and Akiyama, and his friends. Igarashi and Ushijima. I thought we were friends. They were—they were the only ones who talked to me, back then. I laughed off everything they did because I—I never had anybody, and I wanted someone, anyone—”

He tasted smoke. He reached for a bottle; Ryuji twisted the cap off and gave it to him. He drank: mango and lime and… apple, he thought. It tasted like it.

He wound up staring at the bottle. It was easier than looking at Ryuji. “I guess I just wanted someone to care. All the bullying they did—I didn’t care, because it didn’t feel like bullying. I thought they cared. Turned out they were just making fun of me, and I was too desperate to notice.”

Always pushing his way into their conversations. Always volunteering to get lunch from the school store. Always asking if he was invited to their hangouts after school.

Because if he didn’t, he’d be alone.

“So—so when I figured out they were bullying me the whole time, I—”

“Got pissed off?” Ryuji guessed.

Yuuki nodded. Took another sip. Mango and lime and smoke. Apple smoke.

He didn’t have any other excuses. Nothing would make what he asked the Phantom Thieves to do right; no amount of apologies would make his selfishness disappear. He wanted, so badly, to be somebody.

But he was nobody.

Even to the Phantom Thieves; even to Amamiya, he was nobody. If Yuuki didn’t stand around waiting for danger to come to him, would Amamiya ever approach him? Did Amamiya really care?

He eyed the food one more time. Containers upon containers of curry and fried rice, salad and cake, grilled fish and miso soup.

“I don’t understand,” he said again.

“Me neither,” Ryuji said. “All I got outta him was what I said earlier. But, dude: we’re your friends, got that? Friends don’t always gotta get along, and they don’t gotta share the same interests all the time, and sometimes they’re too busy to hang out, but that don’t mean they’re not friends. Akira and all them, they taught me that.”

“Oh,” was all Yuuki could say to that.

Friends. Could he be a nobody and still have friends? Could he still be friends with Amamiya, after what he’d done?

After how hard he’d tried before, could it really be so easy to make friends? To keep them?

Now Ryuji was eyeing the containers; there was one that looked like rolled omelet and fried chicken, and Yuuki thought back to Amamiya boasting over his bentos.

It… had to taste good, right? Amamiya wouldn’t feed himself shitty food, right?

Ryuji’s stomach growled, breaking the silence.

“There are utensils in the kitchen,” Yuuki said, though Ryuji was grinning and out the door before he finished. He rummaged through drawers, everything clanking; Yuuki pulled a container close and popped it open. Something sweet and delicate drifted through the air, and just like that, Yuuki’s stomach was growling, too.

 _“_ _Come on, it tastes really good!”_ he heard, just over his shoulder; but there was only the wall there. No way was Amamiya actually there. _“Just give it a try? Please?”_

Tears welled up; he pushed the container away before he could ruin whatever was in it as guilt flushed hot through him. Amamiya was doing this for him, after everything he’d done. Amamiya was doing this for him, and Yuuki selfishly wanted more: more of his attention, more of his time, more of his lingering gazes and careful touches.

But that was wrong. Amamiya didn’t belong to him; Amamiya didn’t belong to anyone. Yuuki couldn’t keep him to himself. It wouldn’t be fair.

 _Fuck fair_ , said a little part of him. _Why can’t you be happy too?_

Because he didn’t deserve to be. Because he was a terrible, awkward nerd just one bad day away from becoming a shut-in or worse. Because Amamiya deserved better than someone like Yuuki; he deserved a pretty girl on his arm, and an adorable clutch of children to fawn over, and to be recognized for his work with the Phantom Thieves.

Because he was right: they were doing more than the police ever could, more than children like Yuuki could ever dream of accomplishing, more than anyone thought a bunch of wronged teens capable of. What wouldn’t be right or fair would be to watch the Phantom Thieves fade away into obscurity.

Yuuki didn’t want that to happen. Yuuki wouldn’t let it happen.

(It was easier than focusing on Amamiya, and his voice in Yuuki’s ear, and how it made him feel.)

He sniffed, wiped at his eyes, grabbed the container again. Some kind of cream puff cake stared at him as he dithered over whether to wait for Ryuji or not—but it was _cake_. When was the last time he had cake? Yuuki scooped it up and ate it, trying to focus on banana cream and some kind of berry paste. It was good.

It didn’t taste like smoke, and it was good, and Yuuki tried not to think it was because there was love in it.

When Ryuji finally came back, a fistful of utensils in each hand, whining that the layout of Yuuki’s kitchen made no sense, Yuuki was licking cream off his fingers and reaching for another container.

Ryuji grinned at his appetite, at the steadily growing pile of empty containers on the bed, at the few promises Yuuki uttered in between mouthfuls to be better.

He had to be. It was what the Phantom Thieves deserved.

* * *

Akira should have thought this through.

He wheeled his luggage through security and rejoined the rest of his class—or rather, Ryuji and Ann and Yuuki, who was more invested in his phone than usual. Akira was sure the faint blush on his cheeks was just the screen reflecting off his face; the Phan-site, after a few good weeks of inactivity, had started back up again as if nothing had been amiss. Posts speculated that Medjed had gone after the admin, or that he’d been away on vacation.

As if, Akira thought. He hadn’t cooked all that food because Yuuki was having a good time. He definitely hadn’t cooked it to keep from answering the incessant questions lingering in the Thieves’ gazes. Perfection only came with a lot of practice, and Akira was proud to say he could finally bake that mille-feuille.

(If he was doubly happy that Yuuki liked it, he tried not to show it.)

But, now. Now, with summer vacation and all its trials and tribulations and successes and joys over, now he had another problem.

“Gate 4 now boarding,” said the intercom, smooth and calm and sweet as banana cream.

Akira shuddered.

Ann nudged him in the arm. “You okay? You look a little green.”

It would be vastly different from the airbus. The airfield’s gravity was already low; taking off had been akin to riding a train, sliding from one destination to another with nary a hiccup to be felt. Vastly different from Renall’s personal shuttle and Earth’s airplanes.

He could already hear the engines roaring, whining, breaking into pieces as they imploded—

He breathed. “I. I don’t like flying.”

She stared at him, eyes wide, mouth agape, waiting for him to take it back. When he didn’t, she asked, “Wait, really?”

He nodded, suddenly mute.

“Uh, okay,” she said, glancing around as the rest of their classmates departed to wander the airport until they had to board. Ryuji was sniffing around a fast food joint; Yuuki was still nose-deep in his phone, dodging people on his way to the gate. Ann huffed, stomped her foot, hefted her carry-bag. “Boys,” she muttered under her breath, then turned back to him.

Something must have shown on his face, because she was soon dragging him to the gate, too, following the tiny wake Yuuki left as he plowed his way over. Two-hundred odd students, their chaperons, and various teachers milled about; some dropped their carry-on bags with friends staying by the gate, some were chatting up the teachers or students from other schools; some, like Yuuki, were so deep into what they’d brought along to keep them entertained that they hardly seemed to notice the world. One girl was talking loudly on her phone; a boy bobbed his head to music streaming through his earbuds.

Ann sat Akira down in as secluded a corner as she could find, took his hands, and said, “You’re going to be fine, Akira.”

That’s what he’d thought, too, all those lifetimes ago. Before the shuttle went up in smoke and fire. Before metal shrapnel tore his body to pieces. Before the fire ate the rest.

Before he was nothing but a soul, helpless and helplessly unable to do a damn thing.

“Say it. Come on: ‘I’m going to be fine.’”

“But,” he said, though his mouth refused to cooperate with any more.

“Say it,” she insisted. “You can do it. ‘I’m going to be fine. Nothing is going to happen. We’re going to take off here and land in Hawaii yesterday, and then I’m going to have some fun.’”

He grunted. He squeezed her hands. “I don’t—like flying.”

“I don’t think anybody does.”

“I had a dream, once,” he said, though it came out in fits and starts. Her hands squeezed his; her eyes bore into his, encouraging. “I—was on a—a plane, and it got shot. There was all this smoke, all this fire. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything. There was nowhere to go but—but out, but if I did I would die.”

He’d died anyway. It had been too sudden to actually stop, too sudden for Renall to push him out or to find the parachutes.

“But I did anyway,” he said, “when it exploded. It’s—it’s not going to explode, is it? Planes don’t—don’t do that, right?”

“I think the action movies take it a little too far,” Ann said, “so no, it’s not going to explode. You’re going to be fine, I promise. I’ve flown lots of times, and I’m fine!”

That didn’t mean there wasn’t the chance that now would be the one-in-a-million unlucky take-off. There was always the chance that something would happen once they were in the air, once everyone was relaxed and waiting for the long flight to be over, and none of them would know until it was happening.

Ann’s smile drooped at the edges; her phone buzzed, and she let go of his hand to look at it. Darkness crept in the corners of his vision; he ducked his head, grabbed at a hunk of bangs, tugged.

It hurt, but it helped: he was still alive to feel it. That was good.

But the anticipation didn’t die; if anything, it surged higher. He didn’t want to board the damn plane. He didn’t want to be stuck in an airplane for eight hours. He didn’t want to die on it.

He didn’t want to be that helpless ever again.

But it was true, wasn’t it: not every plane exploded in midair. Not every plane was the target of missile fire, and not every plane carried future emperors on board. He was going to be fine.

Maybe. Probably.

“Hey, Akira,” Ann said, tucking her phone away, squeezing his hand again. She tugged it away from his hair. “Why—why don’t you sing something with me? It’ll help take your mind off the flight!”

“Sing? With—with you?”

“Yeah!” Her grin was brilliant; like Ryuji’s, it could light up a room all on its own. She ducked her head closer, until their foreheads were almost touching. “We can sing anything you want! Okay?”

With her so close, still smiling, he almost forgot he was in an airport; “Gate 5 now boarding,” intoned the intercom.

Boarding. Flying.

He wanted to go. He wanted to go to Hawaii; he wanted to goof off on the beach for a few more days. He wanted the chance to catch Yuuki in a swimsuit. He wanted to listen to the waves as they crashed on the beach, the stars shining above more numerous than he could ever dare to count; he wanted to buy Yuuki dinner. Something from the boardwalk, something Hawaiian and foreign and therefore unknown to either of them.

Akira tipped his head forward, shutting his eyes. A song. Any song. Any single song he could think of, and Ann would follow along—but he couldn’t remember any of Earth’s songs. He liked his own more, the ones that came from deep in his soul and conveyed a truth to the world that could never be taken back once it was sung. He liked the song Yuuki’s soul sang, and the song he sang with Goro to traverse whole universes. He liked Kanon’s songs, purely repentant; he liked Casty’s songs, full of rage and fun.

This was none of them.

Without even knowing it, he was humming. Ann did her best to follow along but stopped after a while; he barely noticed it. All that mattered was the song.

_But I can’t let fear get the best of me—_

He wanted to go.

_—someone once said—_

He wanted to goof off on the beach.

_—burn my dread, babe—_

He wanted to catch Yuuki in a swimsuit.

(Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he would stare, and that would be weird. Akira would think it was weird. Akira wouldn’t want someone to stare at him like that.

Maybe he shouldn’t.)

_—because, I can only be me—_

He wanted. He wanted too much, too soon. Yuuki was there, somewhere. Akira could practically hear his soul.

And like before, he wanted everything Yuuki would give him and more.

_Some people may stay with you, though—_

He didn’t remember boarding the plane. Takeoff was a blur of noise and his stomach dropping straight out of him; he hummed through it, clinging to an arm next to his. Ryuji, maybe, or Ann.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, didn’t remember what words finally caused him to drift off; he only knew that Ryuji clung back just as tightly, and his shoulder was warm, and if Akira was going to die at least he wouldn’t die alone.

(Ryuji, seated in the window seat, glanced up from their game of Chinese checkers. Akira snored away on Yuuki’s shoulder, his glasses pushed askew, all the tension leaked right out of him at last.

He wondered why Ann insisted Yuuki take the middle seat, but figured it didn’t matter.

“Dude, you’re as red as a tomato,” he teased, nudging Yuuki in the ribs.

Yuuki scowled—it didn’t suit his face, not one bit—but couldn’t school the blush on his cheeks. Ryuji was trying very hard not to notice their hands, entwined on the armrest. “Shut up.”

“Do you think your head’ll pop if it stays that way?”

Yuuki scowled harder. Akira nuzzled in further, sighing, and his hand shook as he took his turn.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

He snapped a photo as Yuuki tried to move his piece, hand trembling so badly it kept slipping out of the hole. Then he sent it to Ann, four rows up and chattering to a bunch of girls about how traveling really wasn’t that scary and they didn’t need to be afraid of the locals.

 **So** , he sent, **do I wanna know?**

 **Do you?** she sent back, like the cheeky know-it-all she was. **You could just ask, you know.**

Ugh, no way. It wasn’t that it was gross, it was more that Yuuki would deny it to the moon and back, and Akira looked so damn comfortable that Ryuji didn’t want Yuuki’s flailing to wake him.

 **But** , Ann sent, **looks like Akira doesn’t have to worry!**

**What does that mean?**

But no matter how long he waited, no explanation came.)

* * *

Amamiya was still half-asleep as they filed off the plane hours later, leaning heavily on Yuuki and humming snatches of a song under his breath. Yuuki thought he’d heard it somewhere before, but that was ridiculous: he barely listened to music anymore, much less the kind that Amamiya liked.

Whatever kind that was.

Ryuji grabbed their suitcases from the luggage carousel, and hauled it all over to the waiting buses, and Yuuki ignored the looks he was getting having Amamiya bury his face in his shoulder. People were taking pictures. The girls were giggling.

He couldn’t stop blushing, and he knew it.

Takamaki took pity on him; by the time they were boarding the buses, Ryuji was busy manhandling Amamiya up the stairs and into a seat. There was a line of students waiting to get on after them, and Takamaki nudged Yuuki in nearly the same spot Ryuji did. “So,” she said, “Akira, huh?”

“He was breathing on my neck,” was the only excuse he could give. “You try and keep a straight face like that!”

“Uh-huh,” she said, in clear disbelief.

What was worse, he could still feel it: Amamiya’s hot breath on his skin, the jut of his nose digging into the meat of his throat. It made his guts squirm in a different way than Igarashi—

Igarashi. The damn asshole. This was his fault.

His silence stretched too long; Takamaki asked, “You really didn’t like it? Not even a little?”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“I won’t tease you anymore if that’s true, okay?”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, either. Just that his hand felt cold now that Amamiya wasn’t clinging to it anymore, and that he hadn’t minded it one bit, aside from the staring. At least Igarashi waited until they were alone to kiss him.

Igarashi’s smirk. _Maybe you’ll want to do something more than hold your hero’s hand after this_ , he’d said, as confident as he was terrifying. Yuuki was still glad there hadn’t been any tongue in that kiss; he wasn’t sure what he’d do if Igarashi did that.

He settled for, “It’s… not that I didn’t like it. It’s just… no one’s ever done that with me before. It felt kind of weird.”

“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t—I mean, of course I didn’t know, I just—”

“It’s okay,” he said. He wasn’t sure if it was true or not. “If he wasn’t feeling that well, I can’t really blame him, can I? We all do weird stuff when we’re sick.”

Takamaki went quiet for a while. Ryuji finally got Amamiya into a seat, and the rest of the students trickled onto the buses, one by one. The teachers and chaperons stood around, giving orders or hauling suitcases into the storage spaces under the buses; one third-year girl in a purple-pink sleeveless top pitched them in with relative ease, her hair bouncing around her ears.

Yuuki was so focused on her rhythm that when Takamaki latched onto his arm, he jumped. “What—”

“Guess I’m not feeling all that great myself,” Takamaki said, with a fake cough tacked on the end. “Help me onto the bus? Pretty please?”

Now people were staring for a different reason. “Um, but you—you were fine a few minutes ago!”

“Yeah, but now I’m not feeling so hot,” she whined. “Jet lag, you know?”

“I—I guess so?”

Did jet lag work like that? Takamaki would know; she’d flown all over the world. She had way more experience than he did, that was for sure, so maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe she really did need help.

So he helped her onto the bus; she chose a seat where she could curl up against him like Amamiya did on the plane, her breasts pressed into his arm and her breath hot on his neck. Ryuji was staring openly; half the bus was staring. Yuuki was pretty sure even the driver did a double-take.

“Thanks,” she said, her voice small, and—she was teasing him. Testing him. Giggling at how red his face wasn’t getting, because she was right there to see it.

“No problem,” he said.

She didn’t press the issue with Amamiya. She just snuggled in closer, exclaiming quietly at how comfortable his shoulder was and ignoring the glares Yuuki was getting. The longer it went on, the less Yuuki cared.

He thought he would. It was Takamaki, arguably the most gorgeous girl in school, and she was clinging to his arm like they were dating. He should care. He should feel something.

(Hadn’t he hoped, months and months ago, for exactly this? Operation Maidwatch may have failed, but a guy could hope, couldn’t he? So why was everything different now?)

But the only thing he noticed was that it was different from Amamiya’s clinginess. As the buses took off to the hotel, his heart calmed down; he paid less attention to the gossip among his classmates and more to the scenery going by out the window. Lush fields and sandy beaches and the wide blue ocean meeting the wide blue sky.

It was definitely different from Tokyo.

“Akira’s been saving up for this trip,” Takamaki told him softly. “He said he wants to try out the local cuisine and some other stuff. He’s really been looking forward to it.”

He was better than Yuuki, then, who didn’t even have a proper swimsuit. Shujin didn’t have a pool, and the trunks Yuuki had worn in middle school were now a size too small. He wouldn’t be caught dead in them; Hirotaka had offered to take him shopping, but Yuuki figured he could just walk on the beach or stay in the hotel. He didn’t need to go swimming to have fun.

Right?

“Sounds like he’s more prepared than everyone else is,” Yuuki said. The rest of their classmates were pouring over brochures or talking about how long they could get away with playing on the beach; most of them barely had enough money squirreled away for food.

As if Yuuki could talk. Hirotaka may have loaded him down with extra spending money, but Yuuki wasn’t sure how far it would go here. Maybe if he just bought fast food, or found a convenience store selling something cheap but filling…

Takamaki laughed. “Yeah, that’s Akira all right. Prepared is his middle name, you know.”

“Middle? Is that an American thing?”

She only laughed some more. It must have been, then.

They passed some more time in silence, with only the rumble of the road beneath them; the beachfront came into view, the grand hotels towering into that wide blue sky. The city stretched out behind them, as gray and featureless as Tokyo.

Some things never changed, Yuuki supposed.

But everywhere else there was greenery, and the white sands of the beach, and that wide blue sea. Tourists ate and chatted under the shade of palm trees; vendors called out wares from their stalls. They sold jewelry and food and clothes; hats and sandals and sunscreen; candy and shaved ice and shrimp on skewers; necklaces made with shells and shark’s teeth and bracelets with names carved into driftwood.

“You know, he still needs a roommate,” Takamaki said, as the bus pulled into a parking lot. “I didn’t hear anybody asking him before we left; I think everyone else has paired up by now.”

“Don’t say it like that, geez,” he muttered, but couldn’t help looking over his shoulder. No one had asked Yuuki to room with him, either, and he doubted he could share with Takamaki. The last thing the school needed was another scandal.

Amamiya was a bit more lively, now that he’d had his nap and was off the plane. He pointed something across the street out to Ryuji, causing him to try and peer out the window, too: they wound up nearly smashed into the glass, Amamiya’s glasses digging into the side of his face.

Yuuki turned back to Takamaki, who had extricated herself to stretch. “You think he wants to room with… me?”

“Yeah,” she said, easily. “Why wouldn’t he?”

Because of what Yuuki tried to make him do. The people Yuuki wanted them to go after; he had the vaguest recollection of anger on Amamiya’s face, that blank indifference transformed into a quiet fury.

_I care what he does._

Amamiya had plans for this trip. He wasn’t going to be glued to Yuuki’s side; just because they were roommates didn’t mean they had to do everything together. Yuuki could stay out of the way in the hotel room. He could work on the Phan-site. He could stay as far away from Amamiya as possible; he couldn’t be angry, then, right?

“I… guess I can ask, then,” he said, sure that Amamiya wouldn’t say yes.

* * *

Akira shouldn’t have said yes.

He was fine throughout the day; he and Ann and Ryuji walked up and down the beach, eating from various vendors and taking photos for Futaba and Morgana to peruse at their leisure. But the closer it came to dinner, the more tired he felt, until they decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night.

But he’d forgotten Yuuki, left behind in the room. Yuuki, who was sound asleep in the other bed, his quiet snores like the rush of the tide.

He was right there. Right there, and…

And…

And Akira was staring at the ceiling, mentally counting the ways this was a bad idea. It was a great idea, but it was a bad idea. He didn’t want to be here. He never wanted this trip to end.

Yuuki rolled over in his sleep.

Akira watched him for a while; Yuuki had left the curtains drawn a bit, and moonlight spilled into the room and across his bed. He was so pale his skin seemed to glow, and there was no evidence of the bruises Kamoshida had left him with, no trace of fear or anger as he slept.

Akira thought of long nights with the monitor turned on its side. He thought of all the bedtime stories he’d told his Yuuki, unaware of if or when the other boy fell asleep. Yuuki could have been watching him, just like this. Yuuki could have been watching, and thinking that he was beautiful, once all the stress of the day gave way to dreams.

(A dream within a dream—was it a dream at all?)

This Yuuki was beautiful. Even with the dark bruises under his eyes of too many sleepless nights, even with the fading burns on his chin, even with that dark heart he hid away.

His Yuuki loved him this much, too.

Akira blinked back tears. His Yuuki—how many nights had he lain awake, wishing he could touch the boy on the other side of the screen? How many days had he spent, wishing for some gesture of comfort that would never come? How many hours—how many minutes—had he been forced to endure this awful aching feeling in his chest, so full of want it seemed ready to burst out of him?

Nearly as many as Akira, he was sure.

But now, this Yuuki was right in front of him. If Akira wanted to, he could touch him, hold his hand as he slept, brush the hair out of his face. He could climb into bed and sleep right next to him. He could do anything—

And that scared him. Wanting to, even though Yuuki hated him. Wanting to, even though it would drive Yuuki even farther away; the only reason they were rooming was because everyone else in class had their partners already. This was an arrangement of necessity. It wasn’t because Yuuki liked him like that.

Right. It wasn’t because Yuuki liked him. It was because they had no one else to rely on.

But. Still.

Akira watched for a long time after. It might have been only minutes; it might have been hours. Yuuki snored on, softly, oblivious as the moonlight faded and all Akira was left with to see by was the exit sign glowing over the doorway and the memory of Yuuki’s glowing skin.

It was ridiculous. Akira had bathed with Goro Akechi, teen heartthrob, charismatic detective. But that had been different: Goro wasn’t much different at eighteen than he was at eight-and-five-thousand, and Akira had only been concerned with his reluctance to be looked at, not in what he’d look like relaxing at Akira’s side.

But love made everything difficult.

Even if Akira could have done the same before, he couldn’t now. The sheen of water on Yuuki’s skin; the noises he would make as the water warmed him to his core; the flush that would tint his cheeks as the heat got to him…

Akira grunted and rolled over.

This was just a bad idea. It was the best idea, ever, but it was awful. There was a god out there laughing at him; there was another telling him to hurry it up, if the brief bit of friction and the heat pooling in his stomach was any indication.

It was a bad idea. Yuuki could wake up.

But he was finally alone, with no cat around to question why he got up in the middle of the night, and he wouldn’t have to worry about leaving evidence in Leblanc’s tiny bathroom.

It was still a bad idea. Yuuki could wake up.

In his bed, Yuuki rolled over once more. He groaned something unintelligible; the noise sent a shiver straight through Akira’s body.

That did it. Akira got out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom.

* * *

_One more night_ , Yuuki thought, browsing the Phan-site. His bed was comfortable, the hotel room was cool, and even though his classmates passed by his door, chattering loudly, none of them stopped to knock.

Then Amamiya stepped in, bringing with him a burst of noise.

He was wet from the beach, still drying off his hair, his glasses fogged up with steam. Yuuki tried not to look too closely at his bare chest, at the flex of muscle in his stomach as he breathed, at the easy grace he held as he loped over to his suitcase and dragged out an outfit. He paused in the door of the bathroom. “We’re going to a luau,” he said. “Why don’t you come with?”

Yuuki thought of the extra spending money in his wallet. He thought of eating cup noodles at the convenience store—shrimp and pineapple flavor, something exotic and yet bland—for dinner again and didn’t much like the thought.

_There’s no love in instant noodles!_

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Yuuki said. Weren’t a couple of Kosei kids joining them? He was sure he’d heard Akira say he’d spot one of them. The guy had jumped on the chance.

“It’s not imposing if you’re invited, Yuuki,” he heard Akira say, now just out sight in the bathroom. The door was ajar; Yuuki could hear him shuffling out of his wet swimsuit and toweling off.

“Still,” Yuuki said. He turned away from the noise, trying not to think about how easy it would be to wander over and accidentally catch a peek. Prime creep move, that. He didn’t want Amamiya to be even angrier at him.

… Was he even angry? If he was angry, would he be inviting Yuuki out with him?

“Still?” Amamiya pressed.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” Yuuki blurted out. He thought of the storm, and the voice like Amamiya’s that wasn’t there. He thought of the links in the fence digging into his fingers, hauling him up, up, up. “All that stuff I said—what I almost made you do—you should be mad at me!”

The water was running. Amamiya, washing sand and salt out of his hair and from between his toes. Maybe washing off his swimsuit, too, for good measure.

This school trip was trying to kill him, wasn’t it.

He had to creep closer to the door, still wide open, to be heard. “So I don’t get why you agreed to room with me, or why you’re doing—this, or, or—any of it!”

“Do I need a reason?”

“Yes!”

“Oh,” Amamiya said. “Hm. That might be tough.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have one,” was Amamiya’s easy response. “Neither of us had a roommate, and no one else was about to step up to the plate, so that’s a no-brainer. As for why I’m inviting you out: you’re our friend—you’re _my_ friend—and don’t think any of us didn’t notice that you’ve been crammed up in here for the past two days. I’m not saying you have to stick to us like glue, but getting out and having some fun would be good for you.”

It took a while for Yuuki to work himself up to talking. Amamiya’s voice, and the cascade of water, and the things he was imagining—Amamiya under the spray, lathering up every inch of those muscles, scraping his hair out of his face, the water traveling lower and lower—well, staying back at the hotel would probably be a good idea. He could have some more alone time—some _actual_ alone time.

But the shower stopped, and Amamiya was toweling off again. Pretty soon he would come out searching for his belt and socks, and Yuuki would have to face him. He wouldn’t be able to say no to his face.

“Maybe this is how I have fun,” he said, as Amamiya slipped on his jeans.

“Working on the Phan-site is fun?”

“Yes, it is!”

“Working on it _for hours_ is fun?”

“I just said it is!”

Amamiya popped out of the bathroom at last, sans glasses and his button-down shirt. Yuuki saw it clearly when he raised a brow and stared at him, judging. “Even still,” he said. “I’d like it if you came along. You’re not just a manager, you know.”

He was a person with needs, right. And if Amamiya found out he’d been eating instant noodles instead of real food, he’d never hear the end of it.

But if a tirade came out of that mouth, with that voice, and with that look in his eye—

Amamiya crossed the room for his belt and socks and took his time putting them on. Every move he made looked calculated, from the flex of his toes to the way he shook his hips getting his belt on.

But that was just Yuuki’s imagination. There was no way Amamiya was doing it on purpose. There was no way he knew how dry Yuuki’s mouth was getting watching him.

Only yesterday, he’d been paralyzed by Amamiya’s head on his shoulder and his breath on his neck. When did all of this happen? Overnight?

What was he supposed to do?

“Yuuki?”

“Fine!” Yuuki said. If he just agreed, Amamiya wouldn’t look at him like that anymore. “Fine! I’ll go, okay? Just—let me grab my things.”

Amamiya only nodded, shoving his feet into his sneakers and his wallet in a pocket. He disappeared into the bathroom for the room key and his glasses, and Yuuki took the chance to breathe.

It didn’t work too well. All too soon, Amamiya was back, Yuuki was stuffing his feet into shoes, and then they were leaving the hotel room behind. They met up with Amamiya’s friends in the lobby; introductions went around.

(Yuuki wasn’t really surprised to find that half of them were seriously talented or gorgeously pretty or both. Takamaki was an airhead at worst, but she was a professional model; Ryuji was thinking about going pro with his running in college; Niijima was Student Council President and probable valedictorian of her class; Kitagawa was eccentric, but as a former pupil of Madarame, his art had potential; Togo was hailed as the beauty of the shogi world.

And Yuuki was just some guy who ran a website.)

They took a bus down the beachfront, watching the sun set over the water, lighting it crimson and gold and a velvet purple. Stars peeked out as night fell; luckily for them, the path to the luau stage was marked with torches burning citronella, their flames dancing in the sea breeze. There was already a sizable gathering—Yuuki could hear laughter, and the faint crunch of rushes under foot—and Amamiya’s group was no exception, heading over with their own commentary.

But Yuuki held Amamiya back with a hand on his shirt, his grip weak. If Amamiya wanted, he could pull away. He could join his friends and not give Yuuki a second glance. Where else would he go, except to the luau? Would he trudge all the way back to the hotel on foot?

But Amamiya didn’t pull away. Yuuki was silently grateful.

“I, uh,” he said, the words disappearing like so much smoke in the air. Smoke in his lungs, in his mouth, coating his tongue. “I—”

“That actor wasn’t a bad guy,” Amamiya said. Yuuki snapped to attention. “I know you were worried. Ann was too, once I told everyone the details. But there was nothing to change. That’s why we didn’t do anything about it.”

“Oh,” Yuuki said.

“And Akiyama—I’d change his heart if it made you feel better. But you saw how he was last time, right? How downtrodden? Like that bully at the beginning of the year?”

“You think whoever he’s gotten mixed up with is doing that?”

Amamiya nodded. “A bully for a bully. Shouldn’t you feel happy about that?”

“No!” Yuuki said. He might have hated the way Akiyama treated him, but it was his own fault in the end. His fault for being desperate and pathetic and needy. His fault for being greedy. “No, I—I don’t like him, that’s true. And I don’t like what he did to me, but…”

“But?” Amamiya asked, as soft as the flickering flames.

“But I don’t want anyone else to go through that,” Yuuki said. “No one—not ever—deserves to get pushed around. But if I do the same thing with the site, I’m just as bad. That’s what you were waiting for me to get, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like what he did to me.” He didn’t like what Igarashi did, either, but Amamiya didn’t need to know about that. “I don’t like—any of it. None of it, at all. I just wanted to feel better about being so stupid that I let myself get used all the time. I thought, if you let it happen, it’s your fault. I thought—I thought you’d challenge me, like you did at the buffet. I thought you’d tell me I was being selfish. But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

There was sand getting into his eyes. Sand, or smoke, or salt off the sea, making his eyes sting. “So I just got more selfish. I started wondering what your breaking point would be. I certainly didn’t have one. And—and the more I thought about it, the more pissed off it made me. I thought the Phantom Thieves had morals! I thought they cared about people using each other! And then I thought that if I didn’t waste all your time with petty criminals, you’d have more chances to go after bigger targets. But you didn’t seem to care.”

Amamiya’s hand on his, teasing his fingers open, rubbing circles onto the back with a thumb. Yuuki didn’t realize his eyes were screwed shut until he tried to open them and they stung with tears. He wiped at them. Off in the distance, the luau started up.

“I wanted you to be something,” he said, “and I wanted to be something, too. But I—I can’t do it on my own. I’m just a—a coward who hides behind other people, taking the credit and the blame when they don’t want to. And I—I look at everyone who doesn’t believe that you’re real, and I think they think I’m not real, either. Wasn’t I doing something to help you? Did my efforts mean nothing? If—if a little threat was all it took to stop some of them, that’s a good thing, right?”

“Is it?”

“I don’t know!” And he didn’t. He never liked threats—but ones aimed at him and ones aimed at everyone else, those were two different things. “I don’t—I didn’t like doing it. I thought I had to. If the Phantom Thieves could send calling cards—if they could threaten the bad guys—why couldn’t I do it, too? Why did it make me feel worse, after?”

He broke off to sob, a long, shuddering breath that made his whole body shake. Amamiya clutched his hand tighter and said, “Because you’re a good person, Yuuki.”

“I’m not a good person.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m not!” That cascade of guilt, so deep and all-consuming that it threatened to swallow him whole. That realization that he was nothing, that he was always nothing, that he would only ever be nothing. What was that, if not— “You changed my heart, didn’t you? Doesn’t that mean I’m not a good person?”

He was awful. He was so damn terrible. He was nothing, but he was a scourge upon Japan, using the Phantom Thieves like his own personal hitmen. God, he was—

“Look at me, Yuuki.”

In fits and starts where he rubbed at the tears still stinging in his eyes, he did. Amamiya’s glasses were perched on his forehead, and his eyes blazed with something fierce and determined that stole the breath from Yuuki’s lungs.

Then he pressed a kiss to Yuuki’s knuckles.

“You’re a good person,” he was saying, when Yuuki’s brain stopped fizzing with white noise. “You’re good. I believe that. And I’m glad the Phantom Thieves had nothing to steal, nothing to change; I wouldn’t want you to. All these flaws are just part of who you are. That you’ve overcome them means you’re strong enough to stand on your own two feet without anyone to hide behind.

“And you’re brave,” he was saying, as raucous laughter echoed down the path. Yuuki tasted salt on the breeze. “No one else I know would dare to stand around in Shinjuku looking for leads day after day. No one else I know would take a beating from Kamoshida and stand up to him despite that. You have courage, Yuuki, even if you can’t always see it. Even if it hides some days. Even if you don’t think you do. I know how brave you are, and how clever.”

“Oh,” Yuuki said, through a strangled throat. Amamiya was only touching his hand, but his whole body was hot, something sparking to life under his skin like a firecracker.

There were whole worlds of difference between Amamiya and Igarashi.

It was the praise, he thought. Who else would praise him like this, while pressing kisses into his hand? Who else could make it sound so earnest while making him want to beg for more?

“So,” Amamiya went on, “when I say you’re not just a manager, I mean it. The Phantom Thieves don’t need a manager. We don’t need someone to spread the good word. Whether people believe or not is up to them, and it should be their choice to say it. You don’t need to manage what they say and do and who they ask us to target.”

“I don’t?” But what would be the use of the Phan-site, then?

Amamiya’s gaze was steady. Yuuki was afraid to break it. “No, you don’t. But—I won’t tell you what to do, understand? You’ve got to figure that out on your own.”

On his own? How could he ever figure something like that out? There were criminals out there, and people begging for something to be done, their voices unheard under the tide of disbelief—

“Oh,” he said again, as Amamiya pressed one last kiss to the back of his hand.

“Figured it out already?”

“I, um.” Maybe. Probably. But saying it out loud felt lame. “I think so.”

Amamiya’s eyes danced with—was that pride? Or humor? Or some mix of the two? Yuuki’s head was spinning too much to tell. “See? I told you you were clever, Yuuki.”

“Yeah,” Yuuki said. Because maybe he was clever, and maybe he was brave, and maybe he could be something without the Phantom Thieves to hide behind. The next deep breath he took was laced with the scent of roasting meat; it made his mouth water and his stomach complain.

“Yeah,” he said again, with a little more gusto. “I—I am, aren’t I?”

“You are,” Amamiya agreed, then slung an arm around his shoulders. “Now—let’s get to that luau before Ryuji eats the whole pig, shall we?”

Yuuki let himself be tugged along. For once, the weight on his shoulders wasn’t heavy. His feet didn’t drag across the sand. He wondered how long the feeling would last, then decided it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was the belief Amamiya held in him. To do the right thing and speak for the people who couldn’t. To do the right thing and let the Phantom Thieves do their jobs.

To do the right thing and just believe.

* * *

Amamiya led the way back to their hotel room, flipping the keycard through his fingers, his other hand just out of reach. Yuuki couldn’t stop looking at it, couldn’t stop thinking about the easy way that hand held his, the easy way Amamiya kissed his knuckles, one by one and back again, feeding him compliments all the while.

Yuuki hadn’t thought about it at the luau, hadn’t thought about it on the bus ride back, but now it was staring him in the face: he was going to have to spend another night alone with Amamiya, with nothing more pressing to do than getting some sleep, and…

Yuuki wasn’t sure if he could sleep, after that.

If he was at home, he would take a long, hot bath. Every time the water would begin to cool down, he would fill it back up again until his head spun; it was easier than going to the roof some days, and back before Kamoshida’s arrest was one of the only ways he ever got to sleep despite his aching muscles.

But he wasn’t at home. Amamiya was here, too. Amamiya would want a long, hot bath of his own; it wouldn’t be fair of Yuuki to hog the tub.

Well, maybe he could distract himself with the Phan-site. It kept him busy for two days; what was another night on top of that?

The room was cold when they returned. Yuuki shivered and headed for the thermostat.

“Yuuki,” Amamiya said, still by the door.

“Yeah?” Would twenty-five be too warm? Did it matter, if they were taking baths? Probably not.

“About earlier,” Amamiya began, drumming his fingers on the door to a song only he heard. “I, um. Was it… okay?”

How was he supposed to answer that? Was he supposed to be honest, and say that sleeping in the same room as Amamiya was terrifying, now? Was he supposed to be honest, and say that nothing had ever made him feel as good as those kisses did? Was he supposed to admit he wanted more?

But Amamiya had Takamaki and Niijima and Togo. He wouldn’t want someone like Yuuki.

“The luau?” Yuuki forced himself to ask. His voice cracked halfway through. “Yeah, it was—it was great. I should have gotten some pictures of those fire dancers; Dad would have loved to see them.”

“That’s not what I meant.” A huff of breath. The air conditioner shut off, and in its death rattles Amamiya said, “You know what I meant.”

Yuuki shoved his hands in his pockets. They curled around his wallet and phone; his keyring was in his suitcase, safe until he got home. He stared at the thermostat: twenty-four degrees Celsius, just a bit over seventy-five Fahrenheit. The room was going to be too warm.

Amamiya was still waiting for an answer when he turned around. He said, “I don’t get you.”

Amamiya shifted on his feet. His glasses dangled from one hand; he spun them lazily, the lenses catching the light.

Yuuki was going to have to admit something before he settled down; as it was, the idea of a pissed off Phantom Thief in his hotel room didn’t sit well with him at all. Because it was Amamiya, and not because Yuuki had done something to earn his ire; because it was Amamiya, and Amamiya made him feel—

A knock at the door. Yuuki jumped two feet in the air and nearly collapsed by the thermostat; Amamiya leveled a scowl made even more terrifying without his glasses to hide it and threw the door open.

Ryuji, on the other side, scowled back. “You will _not_ believe what just happened!”

“Yeah?” Amamiya let him in; he stalked inside, seemingly oblivious to the dangerous promise in Amamiya’s voice. “What happened?”

“My damn roommate locked me out!” Ryuji landed on Amamiya’s bed, back first, arms askew. He kicked his feet; one shoe flew and nearly hit the ceiling. “Said he was having his girlfriend over and could I take a hint and leave? Man, what an _asshole_.”

Yuuki eyed his empty hands. “He just… kicked you out like that?”

“Yeah! Effin’—goddamn—I got sand, in places I don’t want sand, you know?”

“Bath’s free,” Amamiya said, then sighed. He shoved his glasses back on. “Which room were you? I’ll get you a change of clothes while you’re in there.”

“What?” Ryuji sat up; Yuuki checked for telltales grains on the coverlet and found nothing. “No, dude, you don’t gotta—”

“You’ll need something to change into, right?”

“There’s a gift shop, ain’t there?”

“A whole outfit from a gift shop would be pretty expensive,” Yuuki muttered. Amamiya nodded; Ryuji groaned and flopped back again.

It was pretty sad, and Yuuki did owe him for checking up on him… “I might have something for you, as long as you’re okay with wearing my stuff…”

Though it was all sleepwear. Yuuki could probably get away with wearing it outside, if he wasn’t so self-conscious. Maybe the one visiting the gift shop for an outfit should be him.

He went over to his suitcase, embarrassingly spare for four days of travel, and pulled out the shirts and shorts, all worn to a velvet softness. Like everything else in his closet, they were the only things that fit anymore.

He… should have taken Hirotaka up on that shopping trip.

Yuuki let Ryuji comb through the meager pile, picking out one or two items and checking the fit. By the door, Amamiya tugged on his bangs and said, “You’ll need underwear, right? I’ll go pick that up, then.”

“You guys are serious lifesavers, man!” Ryuji said with a grin. As Amamiya left, he hooked an arm over Yuuki’s shoulders and shook him, shouting with an exuberance that made Yuuki’s ears ring.

Then he went to take his bath, and Yuuki was left to repack. It wasn’t much: the sleepwear, the couple of books Ryuji brought him, an extra pair of towels in case he didn’t like the ones here—

Something crinkled as he moved one. Tissue paper, or a note from Hirotaka; Yuuki unraveled first one, then the other, coming up with a pair of flip flops and trunks, both as blue as the sea and the wide, wide sky. The tags were still attached, thought the prices had been scribbled out with a marker.

The trunks looked to be his size. He glanced to the door, and the bathroom; there was no one to watch him pull the curtains shut, strip off his khakis, and try them on. They fit, with a little bit of wiggle room. They fit. They were brand new.

He hadn’t asked for them.

But they fit, and Hirotaka had tried, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that what mattered?

(He could be a little angry about packing them behind his back, couldn’t he?)

He packed them away, hands shaking. Amamiya, kissing his knuckles and showering him with compliments; Hirotaka, coaxing him into eating something, just another bite, just another minute in the shower or the bath, asking over and over if he wanted to go shopping for the school trip; Ryuji, visiting with board games and junk food and his company.

He scrubbed at his eyes; it wouldn’t do to cry now, over something so mundane. If he asked, they would say it was nothing, and maybe it was to them—but to Yuuki, it was more than he’d ever gotten. To Yuuki, it was everything.

It was everything and then some.

* * *

It was September, and the air was still hot.

Maruki traded his button-down and tie for a more sensible polo in the heat, but Hirotaka still spied his messy head of hair as he was stopped by first one tourist, then another, one his way to the station. Hirotaka almost envied him—to be young, and caring, and so incapable of saying no that everyone passing by mistook him for a station attendant despite the lack of uniform—but eyed his bare arms. Another hour or so and he would be free of his suit jacket, relaxing in his apartment with a cold beer or water, looking over the texts Yuuki sent him throughout the day.

… Yuuki.

He eyed the doctor once more, this time berating a pair of schoolkids for running in the crowded square, their laughter echoing over the chatter.

“Maruki,” he said, when he was close enough. Ever since that night on the roof, he hadn’t had the energy to shout. Or run. Or, well, much of anything.

The doctor jumped, spun around, his surprise fleeting as he recognized Hirotaka. “Mishima,” he said, with that easy smile. “Goodness, it’s been ages, hasn’t it?”

“A few weeks isn’t an age.”

He laughed.

Hirotaka supposed it could be a joke.

Maruki sobered up quickly. “On your way home?” he asked. “Or out to a bar? I was just about to go find one myself, if you’d like a dinner partner again.”

It would be nice, Hirotaka thought. A break from the apartment, and the containers of food someone had made Yuuki in the fridge, and the space that had settled between him and Hiyoko. But every day was a break from all of that. He should stop running from it all.

He should, but one more day wouldn’t hurt, would it?

“I’d like that,” he said, and the sincerity in it surprised him.

But Maruki’s easy smile bled that surprise right out of him. “I’m glad to hear it. You’d be surprised at how many people hear I’m working at a school and immediately want details on the scandals; I think you’re the first person not to care. Ah, not that I’m saying they’re nosy, of course—”

“It’s conversation,” Hirotaka provided.

“Right,” Maruki said. “But I think you’d also be surprised at how many of them lose interest once I say I can’t divulge anything…”

He laughed again. His hair was too long; it kept falling into his eyes, and he kept having to rake it back, and Hirotaka was glad Yuuki wasn’t one of those boys who thought long, shaggy hair made him look cool.

He hoped Yuuki was having fun on his trip. He hoped Yuuki came back refreshed, and not ready to jump off the roof.

Maruki continued to talk, but all Hirotaka could think was, _What can I possibly do now?_

“You seem like you’ve got something on your mind already, Mishima,” Maruki said.

Hirotaka nodded. “I’m… not sure dinner will cover it.”

“Oh?”

He shifted on his feet. Bothering Maruki about his troubles when the doctor already had an entire school of patients to look after wouldn’t sit well with him, but Yuuki needed him to be better. Hirotaka had to be better. There were reasons Yuuki would try to jump off a building and they couldn’t be Kamoshida and the volleyball team anymore, and Hirotaka had to learn what they were if he wanted even the slightest chance of helping him.

“Do you have any recommendations? For doctors like yourself.”

“I—for—oh,” Maruki stammered, that easy smile finally dropping. “Oh, I, ah… I—I do, actually. You want one for yourself?”

Hirotaka nodded. He baked in his suit in the sun, his briefcase a hundred pounds heavier than it was when he left the office. _He_ felt a hundred pounds heavier than when he left the office. Gravity was a very heavy thing.

Yuuki knew that.

“Oh,” Maruki said again, his mouth opening and closing half a dozen times before he finally shut it, squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw. Something steely glinted in his eyes, and Hirotaka wondered how long it had been since he looked like that, so full of promise and resolve that it spilled over for everyone to see.

He wondered how long it had been since Yuuki looked like that.

“I—” Maruki started, but never finished; at the same time a woman’s voice called from behind them, “Mr. Mishima?”

They turned; the couple behind them strode over, the husband’s nondescript paper bag clutched to his middle, the wife’s purse dangling from a shoulder. Hirotaka tilted his head; they looked familiar, though he’d never seen them before in his life. The wife’s expression matched his own. She knew, but not from where; she knew, but couldn’t place why.

“You’re… Amamiya’s parents,” Hirotaka said. The husband’s curly hair; the wife’s gray eyes.

“Yes! Oh, I’m so glad you remembered,” she said, a little of that confusion leaving her.

Her husband added, “We were worried we were mistaken.”

“No, not at all. How—how is your boy?”

“Enjoying himself on his school trip, I hope,” the husband laughed.

“Amamiya?” Maruki asked, quietly.

“Yes,” the wife said, and quickly bowed. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Mishima! We didn’t know you were—”

“It’s fine,” Hirotaka said. “We weren’t too deep in conversation. This is, ah, Doctor Maruki. He’s a counselor at Shujin Academy.”

They traded some more bows, Maruki’s too deep and the husband’s too shallow due to the bag in his hands. “Amamiya has been a delight to work with,” Maruki said, once the song and dance of greetings and business card exchanges were over. “As his parents, you must be very proud.”

“You’ve been working with our boy?”

“I have, yes.” He raked hair out of his face; the Amamiyas traded confused looks, this time for a different reason. “Is something the matter?”

“It’s just, well,” the wife said, “he doesn’t mention much about his time here. We only know that he’s made friends or done well on his tests. Mr. Sakura told us he was going out of the country for his trip and to watch the phone bill, so we thought…”

“We’d come and buy him a birthday present,” her husband finished, hefting the bag. There wasn’t much inside, but a boy like Akira likely didn’t need much.

… Akira? Not Amamiya?

“And visit Mr. Sakura to say thank you,” she finished.

“Mr… Oh, the one taking care of him?” Maruki said.

“You owe him two specials, don’t you?” Hirotaka asked.

The wife blinked. Understanding was slow to dawn on her face, but finally she said, “Yes, we do. We thought we’d have dinner at his shop. But, well.” She laughed. “The subway is a bit… confusing. We were afraid to get lost.”

Her husband nodded. “Emiko took care of the tickets and all that last time, and she’s, ah. Not here, obviously.”

No, obviously not. Her boy was safe and sound and on television, of all things, publicly declaring the Phantom Thieves a menace like he wanted to get kidnapped again, and then the Amamiya’s boy would disappear and Yuuki would have no one anymore, and he would climb over the fence for real this time, and Hirotaka wouldn’t be able to call him down again—

“Mishima?” Maruki asked, tentative in the crowd.

Hirotaka bowed, as slowly and deeply as he dared. He stared at the pavement, at the lines where bright sunlight met shadow, and thought of blood splattered across it. He found he didn’t care how many stares he attracted doing it. “I never got to thank you, before. Your boy saved Yuuki’s life. He’s done more for him than I ever have as a father. Words can’t express how grateful I am.”

“No, no!” the wife exclaimed, hurrying into her own bow. “Without your son, ours wouldn’t be—he’d still be—”

“Dear,” her husband said, “try not to force it.”

“But it’s important,” she all but sobbed. “He helped our boy. Our little boy. Helped him when—when no one else would, but I can’t—I can’t remember _why_ —”

Hirotaka straightened; Mrs. Amamiya was curled around herself, now, her husband rubbing idle circles into her back, both of them ignoring the looks they were getting. “Because no one else had time to, when he was in the stars.”

Mrs. Amamiya nodded, furiously, then clutched at her head. She whimpered. “But he never went to the stars. Not Ren. Not our Ren. That was Akira. He went. So—so where did Ren go?”

“Ren is Akira, dear,” Mr. Amamiya reminded her. Hirotaka nodded; that sounded right. Akira was Ren was Amamiya, the boy in the phone game. He was lost in the stars. Yuuki was helping him get home. They were in Hawaii on their class trip.

“The… stars?” Maruki questioned.

But that wasn’t quite right, either. If he was lost in the stars, he wouldn’t be down on Earth in Shinjuku. He wouldn’t be a classmate of Yuuki’s. There would be no Phantom Thieves running amok, changing hearts and causing angry ex-volleyball team captains to threaten his wife.

Akira was here. Akira was there. Akira was a boy in Yuuki’s phone game; Akira was a boy in his class. Hirotaka gasped as a sudden sharp pain lanced through his skull; he lost his balance and crashed into Maruki, still standing there trying to appraise the conversation.

“Mishima?” he asked, with that wide-eyed, slack-jawed look.

Hirotaka clung to his sleeve. Akira was here. He and Yuuki were getting married, but Hirotaka wanted them to finish their schooling first. Yuuki was doing well in college—no, he was in high school—

“Maruki,” he gasped. Maruki was the only thing different. He was the only one that was real. The rest of them were toys, being played with by a cruel god. He was sure of it. “Can you—do something? Anything. Please.”

People were staring. People were stopping in the square to watch a bunch of grown adults fall all over themselves over a conversation. Hirotaka thought he heard _Phantom Thieves_ and _change of heart_. Mrs. Amamiya whimpered again, her eyes shut tight, her hands like a vise around her head.

“What do you want me to do?” Maruki asked.

How could he not understand? How could he not see the problem that was right in front of him?

“I mean, what can I do to ease your suffering?” Maruki asked, this time quiet in his ear. “I have to understand the problem to help you. I have to understand what solution you want in order to give it to you.”

That didn’t sound like a therapist to Hirotaka.

He said, “Get us out of here, then. Somewhere—somewhere safe. Somewhere we can talk. Something’s—not right. I feel—tangled. Caught.”

“Ren?” Mrs. Amamiya was asking. Her husband was trying to calm her, to no avail. “Akira? Ren, Akira. Renkira. Akiren—”

“I know a place,” Maruki said, shuffling them out of the crowd, over to a waiting taxi.

The city was gray, and passed by in a blur of gray and high wails. And then it was white, blinding and torturous, with men like walking shadows gliding up and down the halls—

(Halls?)

—with faces like blood spattered over pavement. If Yuuki hit the ground, would his face look like that, too? If Hirotaka hit the ground, would he look like that?

The high wailing cut off. Hirotaka was left with silence, and white, and Maruki, his hair combed back out of his eyes, those big glasses tucked into his breast pocket.

He was white, too. White all over, the color bleached right out of him.

“Now,” he said, gripping Hirotaka’s hand, kneeling down to meet him at eye-level—

(When did he sit down?)

—and looking far more serious than Hirotaka had ever seen him before.

“Tell me everything you can,” Maruki said.

Hirotaka was more than happy to.


End file.
